


on the threshold of another trembling world

by draculard



Category: Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Blood and Gore, Dubious Consent, Eating Disorders, Hurt/Comfort, I messed around a little with the ages of the Solo kids, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Destruction, Suicide Attempt, and obviously Thrawn lives lmao, mostly canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:29:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25956010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: A year after Bilbringi, the Empire and the New Republic sign a treaty.Remix of NadiaYar and Mephisto in Onyx's superb "The Art of Hunger."
Relationships: Gilad Pellaeon/Thrawn | Mitth’raw’nuruodo, Rukh/Thrawn | Mitth’raw’nuruodo, Thrawn/Garm Bel Iblis
Comments: 26
Kudos: 52





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NadiaYar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NadiaYar/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Art of Hunger](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10610274) by [NadiaYar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NadiaYar/pseuds/NadiaYar). 



> If you haven't read the fic this is based on ... go read it!!! It's so good and it's one of my all-time favorites; I read it again and again. 
> 
> This is a remix where Thrawn and Pellaeon are not in an established relationship, with more of a focus on the politics of the treaty.

Pellaeon’s lips tightened; he tried to conceal his displeasure, working to keep a neutral expression on his face. His eyes shifted down Grand Admiral Thrawn’s body, taking in the nondescript civilian clothes before snapping back up to Thrawn’s face — which was mostly blank, with a touch of amusement.

“Is that what you’re wearing on the shuttle, sir?” Pellaeon asked, carefully emphasizing the word ‘shuttle’. As in _‘just_ the shuttle, nowhere else.’ A faint smile graced Thrawn’s lips.

“The shuttle, yes,” he said with a nod. “And later to the conference as well.”

That was exactly what Pellaeon feared. He eyed the clothes again, trying valiantly to shift his perception of them. They were utilitarian — a black sweater over a white shirt, with trousers to match — and unremarkable in every way except one, which was that they seemed to fit Thrawn perfectly. Far better than his uniform did, as of late; they’d had his uniforms tailored just one standard month ago, and already his tunic was noticeably too large on him again. 

These clothes had likely been manufactured specifically for his latest measurements, Pellaeon reflected, by the ship’s tailoring droid. He crossed his arms over his chest, dispensing with military bearing for a moment. The new rank plaque on his chest gave him the right to speak freely to Thrawn without asking permission, but it was a right he seldom used. 

“ _This_ is what you’re wearing to discuss our treaty with the New Republic?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral and polite. He heard Thrawn exhale softly — maybe a sigh, or maybe just a sound of amusement.

“This, or something like it,” Thrawn said, indicating the suitcase against the wall. Pellaeon followed his gesture, then glanced up at the closed door to Thrawn’s quarters on the far side of the office. 

“You did pack _one_ uniform, at least,” Pellaeon said.

He could tell from the look of mixed impatience and exasperation on Thrawn’s face that he hadn’t.

“You need at least one uniform, sir,” Pellaeon said. He couldn’t believe he had to say this to a Grand Admiral, of all people. “There will be cameras on us when we arrive _and_ when we sign the treaty, if not through the entire conference. If your uniforms no longer fit—”

“They fit,” Thrawn said, turning his head sharply to stare at his holodisplays rather than Pellaeon. All trace of amusement was gone. 

“Well, then…” Pellaeon gestured toward the suitcase. Thrawn didn’t even turn to look at it; he crossed his arms, mirroring Pellaeon’s posture, and stared down at his desk. It was a long moment before either of them spoke.

“I see no purpose in wearing a uniform to this event,” Thrawn said. 

“To this _multi-day conference,_ sir,” Pellaeon corrected him. Thrawn shrugged one shoulder.

“Do you expect an Imperial uniform to intimidate the Rebellion’s entourage?” he asked. “Do you think it will inspire confidence or respect? This is the uniform of their long-term enemy. I find it more likely to engender nothing but contempt.”

Pellaeon’s temper spiked; he forced it back down. “And what do we care if it does?” he asked, struggling for a respectful tone. “They will sign the treaty _regardless_ , sir. They have no choice. Since Bilbringi—”

A shadow crossed Thrawn’s face. He turned away from Pellaeon deliberately, focusing his attention on a datapad instead. Even from the other side of the desk, Pellaeon could tell there was nothing on the datapad screen worth reading.

“Since Bilbringi,” Pellaeon started again, lowering his voice, “we’ve had them on the run non-stop. Their fleet and medical supplies are depleted; they’re dangerously low on funds and natural resources, particularly tibanna gas and plasma. They’ve lost popular support in nearly all systems. Only one-fifth of the Core Worlds signed their loyalty to the New Republic at last month’s Senate meeting. If they don’t sign, they will be destroyed. Their leadership has three choices: relinquish all governmental power, die fighting the Imperial Fleet, or _sign this treaty._ ”

“They will sign the treaty regardless,” Thrawn said, echoing Pellaeon with his eyes still on the datapad.

“Yes,” said Pellaeon. “Precisely.” Relief shone through in his voice. 

“Then they will sign the treaty whether I wear my uniform or not,” Thrawn said. He glanced up at Pellaeon and the stubborn look on his face seemed to flicker as he took in Pellaeon’s expression. His lips parted slightly, like he might say something, and the stubbornness shifted into something more like chagrin. 

“Sir—” Pellaeon started, seizing upon the expression change.

“If it genuinely concerns you, I’ll wear it,” Thrawn interrupted, looking away. 

“ _Not_ to wear it may be seen as a political statement, sir,” Pellaeon said, now feeling somewhat chagrined himself and struggling to find his footing. He hadn’t expected Thrawn to capitulate so quickly; he'd geared himself up for a disproportionate fight and now felt compelled to continue arguing. “Your position at the head of the Empire is, for many planets, the main appeal of Imperial rule. To go without your uniform — especially to such an important conference, with so much media visibility—”

“You needn’t explain,” Thrawn said evenly. “I understand your reasoning now. I’ll wear it.”

Pellaeon shuffled his feet, working hard to let the topic rest and mentally shift gears now that it was settled. He stepped closer to Thrawn’s desk and hesitantly lowered himself into the seldom-used chair for visitors. Leaning forward, he crossed his arms on Thrawn’s desk; red eyes flickered up to glance at him.

“The delegation is small,” Pellaeon said, voice low. “Have you read the preliminary reports?”

There was a slight pause before Thrawn spoke. “I have,” he said.

Then Pellaeon didn’t need to rehash it. He let his eyes rest on Thrawn’s hands, the fingers appearing longer and thinner than they were before Bilbringi. The length was just an illusion, he knew, but it was an illusion caused by Thrawn’s dramatic weight loss, and the weight loss was very real. 

“Do you think he’ll be there?” Pellaeon asked.

This time, Thrawn didn’t glance up at him. “Who, Gilad?”

Pellaeon hesitated. “Rukh.”

He watched as Thrawn’s eyes went still, frozen on some point on the datapad screen. In the ensuing silence, the only thing to differentiate Thrawn from a statue was the subtle, shallow movement of his chest as he breathed.

“I expect he will insist,” Thrawn said eventually, his voice unusually tight. “And I expect Skywalker — and perhaps Organa Solo — will forbid him. But he will still attend. Perhaps from a distance, but perhaps not; he will wish to make his presence known as a matter of pride.”

“You don’t think they can stop him?” Pellaeon asked. 

Thrawn evaded the question. “Rukh’s actions at Bilbringi are not common knowledge across the galaxy. Aside from a few well-placed higher-ups in both the Empire and the New Republic, nobody knows. As such, his presence should raise no eyebrows outside the conference itself.”

Those few well-placed higher-ups were, specifically, Thrawn himself, Pellaeon, and a small handful of medbay staff whose jobs couldn’t be done solely by droids. Even the bridge crew didn’t know the full truth — just that Thrawn had disappeared sometime during the battle at Bilbringi and had been located the following day on Honoghr. 

His recovery had been easily hand-waved away in the Empire; there was no shortage of excuses available to explain the absence of a Grand Admiral. He could be meeting with Moffs or Senators; he could be planetside on a top secret mission; he could be scouting for new allies. He could be anywhere, really, besides the _Chimaera’s_ own medbay. 

But in the New Republic … did they really have any guarantee that Organa Solo and her minions had kept the news to themselves? A sickening suspicion wormed its way into Pellaeon’s gut. He studied Thrawn’s face, noting the practiced blankness, the way he deliberately avoided Pellaeon’s eyes.

“Did you request his presence there, sir?” Pellaeon asked.

Thrawn didn’t react at all, which was all the answer Pellaeon needed. “You have been privy to all my communications with the Rebellion,” Thrawn said. “You know I did not.”

“I know you didn’t request it from _them_ ,” said Pellaeon with as much patience and gentleness as he could muster. “Did you request it from Rukh?”

Thrawn flicked from one file to the next on his datapad, his index finger tracing absently over the edge of a card inserted into the slot. The cuffs of his shirt were buttoned tightly around his wrists, hiding the ligature scars Pellaeon knew were there. 

“Rukh is still our ally, Admiral,” Thrawn said. Pellaeon couldn’t help but notice that, after months of being called ‘Gilad’ in private, he’d been relegated back to his rank. “His presence at the conference could be valuable to us.”

In what way? Pellaeon wondered. In what world did Rukh’s presence constitute a benefit for the Empire rather than the New Republic? Did Thrawn expect the Noghri’s participation to somehow affect the New Republic delegates — inspiring guilt, perhaps, and thus compelling them to acquiesce to conditions they might not otherwise accept? If so, it seemed like a long shot to Pellaeon, and an absolutely unnecessary one at that, as the treaty was already more generous than the New Republic should expect. It was unlikely they’d need inordinate convincing for any item on the agenda — and in fact, it seemed to him like the Noghri might have the exact opposite effect, anyway. That his presence may make Thrawn seem weak.

“You’re certain this is necessary, sir?” he asked. 

Thrawn glanced up at him briefly, but didn’t bother to respond. Perhaps to him it wasn’t a question of necessity — but what else could it be? A question of strength? A question of dignity? Defiance? Pellaeon dropped that line of thought, cutting straight to the heart of the matter instead.

“Can you face him?” he asked. And then, before Thrawn could open his mouth to answer, he added, “In front of Leia Organa Solo and the rest of the Senators? With cameras recording the entire interaction for the Holonet to see?”

“Can I face him without reacting, you mean,” said Thrawn, his voice soft and calm.

“Yes,” said Pellaeon.

“Without reacting in which way, Admiral?” Thrawn asked. He studied Pellaeon, waiting for an answer, but Pellaeon said nothing. “Without attacking him, perhaps?” Thrawn suggested. “Without a loss of composure?”

Hesitantly, Pellaeon nodded. Thrawn watched him a moment longer before turning back to his datapad.

“You know that I meet with Rukh as frequently as our schedules permit,” he said. His tone was even and conversational, as if they were discussing the weather rather than his attempted executioner. “We have seen each other in person fourteen times since Bilbringi. This conference will be nothing new for either of us, I assure you.”

Fourteen times. Pellaeon noted the number with a sour feeling in his gut — that meant Thrawn had met Rukh eleven times alone, without even Pellaeon as a guard, and nine times without bothering to inform his second-in-command. 

“You want them to see how steady you are,” Pellaeon said heavily as understanding of the situation finally dawned. “That you can meet him without flinching.”

“It shouldn’t be difficult,” Thrawn murmured, smiling faintly again. The expression faded when Pellaeon only stared at him flatly, refusing to share his amusement. 

“Shouldn’t be difficult,” Pellaeon repeated. His eyes flickered down to Thrawn’s narrow frame — always slim, but now closer to gaunt and marred by patches of pale synthetic flesh. Those patches were hidden well by his clothes, whether he chose to wear his uniform or not, but they were there regardless — adhering poorly to his biological muscles, eating away at Thrawn’s pain threshold and level of nightly rest, using up more calories than the Grand Admiral consumed in a day. 

Thrawn shifted uncomfortably in his seat, shooting Pellaeon a defensive look. “You disagree?” he said.

Well, if Thrawn wanted to open _that_ topic…

“Yes,” said Pellaeon, “I disagree. Perhaps you _can_ meet him without flinching, sir, but you can’t disguise your condition, and I guarantee you, that’s worse than any flinch. The weight you’ve lost, for example, or …” He touched the skin beneath his eyes and nodded, indicating the subtle bruises beneath Thrawn’s, caused by lack of sleep and poor diet. 

“My physical attributes will be noticeable whether Rukh is there or not,” Thrawn said reasonably. “But Rukh’s presence will allow me to display _psychological_ attributes important in offsetting the physical side. I cannot convince them I was never attacked; I _can_ convince them it does not affect me — beyond the inescapable physical side effects, of course.”

For a long moment, Pellaeon offered no rejoinder. He avoided Thrawn’s eyes, struggling to cope with the hollow feeling in his chest. Gradually, he forced himself to face the Grand Admiral again.

“Do you consider your weight an ‘inescapable physical side effect?’” he asked. When Thrawn didn’t answer, he said, “You do. Then you assume they will write your condition off as the result of forced starvation imposed upon you by the Noghri?” he asked.

Thrawn gave an unconvincing scoff. It seemed to Pellaeon that, irrational as it was, Thrawn had hoped for exactly that. He’d been in captivity on Honoghr for only a few hours — just long enough for the _Chimaera_ to cross from one day cycle to the next, though it had certainly seemed like weeks even to Pellaeon at the time — and while many terrible things had happened in that brief period of torture, starvation wasn’t one of them. You couldn't starve someone in one day; the Noghri simply hadn’t had the time to deny him more than a handful of meals. 

No, Thrawn’s gaunt frame was something else entirely — an all-too-noticeable symptom of a wounded mind. It was something they scarcely acknowledged, both of them avoiding the topic in the year since Bilbringi. An ensign delivered Thrawn’s meals to his quarters once a day, and whenever Pellaeon had the chance to, he surreptitiously lifted the cover off those meals to gauge how much Thrawn had eaten — and he did this whether Thrawn noticed him checking or not. Only rarely had he seen those meals touched at all; the rest of the time, he suspected, they went straight into the garbage chute and Thrawn either supplemented his diet with a mix of bland ration bars and nutrient-laced water or did not eat at all.

And evidently, this wasn’t a topic Thrawn wished to discuss right now. He stayed silent after his scoff, declining to argue his case or come to his own defense. He focused on his datapad until sufficient time had passed for both of them to consider the subject dropped, and then he finally looked Pellaeon in the eyes. 

“I am grateful to have your support in this conference, Gilad,” he said softly. “There is no one I would rather have by my side — and no one who has earned it as you have.”

Pellaeon snorted. “You’re slipping, sir, if that’s the most subtle thing you can think of to manipulate me,” he said. Thrawn’s lips twitched into an unabashed smile, and despite himself, Pellaeon could feel his willingness to pursue the subject fade away. 

“I’m glad to accompany you,” he conceded, inclining his head. “And I’m glad to end the war. It will be a relief—” An inadequate word, he knew, but it was the best he could come up with. “—to finally focus our attention where it needs to be.”

Thrawn’s eyes sharpened, as they always did at the thought of the Far Outsiders. He nodded grimly, setting aside his datapad to turn his full attention on Pellaeon.

“How do you think this treaty will influence the Rebellion, Gilad?” he asked. “Tell me honestly. Does it have any chance of convincing them to examine this threat more seriously?”

Honestly? Pellaeon’s mouth twisted at the thought. He remembered Skywalker’s face when he first learned of the Far Outsiders from Thrawn — his eyebrows had twitched up, but mild surprise quickly gave way to a detached expression, eyes hooded, shoulders hitching in a reflexive shrug as he immediately processed the information and just as quickly wrote it off — but wrote it off as what, propaganda? Manipulation for some nebulous end? Hysteria, even? 

He hadn’t cared; that was the main point. He hadn’t cared in the slightest. Perhaps he wouldn’t believe in an exogalactic threat until it stared him right in the face.

“I don’t think it will influence them at all,” Pellaeon said.


	2. Chapter 2

To Pellaeon’s surprise, there were no cameras on the landing pad at Coruscant — in fact, there was no media presence whatsoever until he and Thrawn (and their small delegate of stormtroopers) reached the former Imperial Palace at the heart of Coruscant. 

It was more cheerful than Pellaeon remembered it, but in his opinion, it was the same kind of artificial cheerfulness gained when Old Corellian morticians dressed corpses up in paint. The New Republic was doing more to keep Palpatine’s memory alive than the Empire was; rather than move forward, they took his architecture, dashed a thin coat of paint over the bloodstains, and pretended it was their own.

The New Republic committee was waiting for them outside the menacing palace doors, each of them dressed in fine or fine-ish attire — Organa, plus her brother and husband; Mon Mothma; Borsk Fey’lya; and Garm Bel Iblis — with Rukh, as Thrawn had anticipated, standing not far off to the side. Pellaeon’s stride hitched at the sight of the Noghri, his lips tightening into something close to a scowl — but Thrawn didn’t so much as blink.

They came to a stop less than a meter from the New Republic delegation, each side staring the other down, expressions ranging from strained politeness to open hostility. For a moment, Pellaeon worried irrationally that neither side would speak — that they would stand here staring at each other for all eternity — but then Thrawn moved forward, and Luke Skywalker matched his pace almost simultaneously, both men reaching out to shake hands. 

An uneasy smile touched Skywalker’s lips — uneasy, yes, but _genuine_ , Pellaeon felt. Perhaps he truly did wish to end the war. The rest of the assembly shifted into action, then, each of the New Republic representatives taking their turn to greet Thrawn with low murmurs and tight grips. First was Mon Mothma, who matched Skywalker’s grace and certainly outmatched his dignity — then Bel Iblis, whose smile seemed challenging yet irrepressible all at once, like any soldier meeting a worthy adversary outside of battle — and then Borsk Fey’lya, who seemed perhaps a little _too_ subservient to Thrawn as he bowed.

 _That’ll come back to bite him,_ Pellaeon thought, eyeing the cameras. After he and Thrawn had so effortlessly used Fey’lya to drag Ackbar’s reputation down, it seemed almost poetic for Fey’lya to take his turn at scandal next. Likely, the Bothan sensed a shift in power and wanted to worm his way into Thrawn’s good graces before it was too late — but Fey’lya served no purpose to the Empire anymore, and he forgot he needed first to weather the wrath of his people, who would soon see him kowtowing to the Imperial Head on the news.

It didn’t escape Pellaeon’s attention that Han Solo did not shake hands at all — a good thing, in Pellaeon’s opinion — or that Leia Organa Solo went last, perhaps sensing that her presence, more than anyone else’s, was likely to cause a scene. Her shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly as she approached Thrawn, an unconvincing smile pasted on her face. She moved her hand toward him slowly, hesitantly, as if half-expecting an attack.

Thrawn shook her hand, but he didn’t return the smile. When Organa Solo moved away she was blinking slowly, as if surprised or puzzled by the interaction — by Thrawn’s lack of enmity, perhaps, or possibly by the unassuming softness of his handshake, which never failed to raise eyebrows in political and military scenes. The New Republic committee drew together once Leia had shaken Pellaeon’s hand, evidently expecting the greeting process to be done. Pellaeon, knowing Thrawn better, stayed put.

“Commander Hab Qaebbir,” Thrawn said, indicating the trooper to his left. Sweeping his hand around to gesture at the rest of the contingent, he introduced them one by one to the New Republic — treating them as proper soldiers deserving of an introduction rather than faceless grunts, Pellaeon noted, as Thrawn always did. He noticed with vicious satisfaction how the New Republic committee reacted to this, their eyes widening slightly when it became evident Thrawn wouldn’t stop until each and every stormtrooper had been introduced. 

Mon Mothma and Organa Solo recovered quickly, politely inclining their heads to the stormtroopers. Bel Iblis went so far as to shake hands with the commander before resuming his place with the other delegates. Skywalker, looking simultaneously shame-faced and nonplussed, stayed put, but he shuffled his feet like he wanted to join Bel Iblis. Perhaps he felt he had hesitated too long for the gesture to seem natural.

And it was then — when everyone seemed ready to move inside — that Rukh stepped forward.

He approached Thrawn with a steady pace, ignoring the command Skywalker hissed at him or the cautioning hand Organa Solo placed on his shoulder. He passed Bel Iblis, who put his hands out and attempted to physically block Rukh, but the Noghri sidestepped him in a motion so quick it was a blur. Pellaeon tensed and the stormtroopers behind him shifted in place, each of them preparing for a possible attack — and who could blame them? But Thrawn himself didn’t bat an eye, and when Rukh finally knelt before him and bowed his head, Thrawn did nothing but regally extend his hand.

Rather than shake it, Rukh took Thrawn’s hand gently in both of his, cradling it like a precious object. He pressed his nose to Thrawn’s knuckles and breathed in deeply, inhaling his scent. From where the New Republic committee stood, it must have looked like a kiss — like a humble peasant honoring his king. From where Pellaeon stood, it looked somehow worse than that, more intimate; his gut twisted as he watched, and the feeling didn’t start to fade until Rukh stepped away.

Neither he nor Thrawn said a word. The New Republic committee’s faces were frozen, each of them struggling to hide their reaction to this scene. Pellaeon sympathized with them fully, but at the same time, he had to hand it to Thrawn — none of them had expected _that_.

And there was nothing Thrawn enjoyed like catching his enemy off-guard. He looked at the delegation flatly, still not smiling but clearly as satisfied as a feasting vornskr, and indicated the open door to the New Republic's headquarters — as if it were _his_ palace, as if he had every right to invite the others in.

“Shall we?” he said. 


	3. Chapter 3

The stormtrooper leaned over Thrawn’s chair, allowing him to stroke the ysalimir before all four of the creatures were taken away. Skywalker watched pensively from across the room; he moved forward one step at a time as the stormtroopers left, and took his seat only when Thrawn finished petting the ysalimir and dismissed Commander Qaebbir from the room.

“It’s been a struggle getting the others to accept even the _idea_ of a treaty,” Skywalker told them confidentially, keeping his voice hushed as the door closed behind Qaebbir. The three of them were alone for now in a small chamber not far from the quarters the New Republic provided for them; the stormtroopers were now sequestered away with the rest of the committee, watching over the ysalimiri Thrawn had brought along.

Negotiations could not go forward, the New Republic claimed, until they confirmed through Skywalker that Grand Admiral Thrawn was exactly who he said he was — although how they expected to confirm this, Pellaeon couldn’t say. Thrawn sat in an armchair near Pellaeon, lounging with the same lazy posture he used in his command chair, but with an unamused expression on his face that told Pellaeon he had little patience for these demands. Pellaeon could not mask his own impatience; he sat rigid in his chair, his spine ramrod straight and his limbs vibrating with unreleased tension.

Skywalker, for his part, was emanating a mixture of embarrassment and uncertainty — it would have been endearing, perhaps, if he were a fresh-faced ensign rather than a warrior responsible for millions of deaths. Knowing all that he had done in the war, from the original Death Star to Mindor and beyond, his air of bashful naivete felt insulting. Cheap.

“When you’ve been fighting something as long as we have…” Skywalker continued, trailing off. He looked from Pellaeon to Thrawn, and a flicker of something — guilt? concern? — darkened his face. 

“That is, when you’ve condoned so many terrible things in the name of eventual good,” Thrawn said, “it becomes difficult to accept that one’s goals may never be fully achieved. You’ve lost the justification for your least tenable deeds.”

Pellaeon expected Skywalker to argue this point — or at least take offense to it — but instead, he looked at Thrawn with a pensive cast to his face, eyes tracking from the patch of synthflesh just barely visible on the underside of Thrawn’s jaw down to his bony hands, and nodded.

“Yes,” he said, sounding distant and subdued. “I suppose you could put it that way.”

He would drop the subject entirely now, Pellaeon suspected. But instead, Skywalker’s mouth firmed and he met Thrawn’s eyes, holding his head up high, like a man facing some undesirable fate but determined not to look away.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you, Admiral,” he said. This time, he did not lower his voice; it rang out into the empty room with a harshness that made Pellaeon want to flinch. Across from him, he saw Thrawn’s eyes narrow in response. “It was against my sister’s wishes as well as my own,” Skywalker said. “We told Rukh his planet had been poisoned — and yes, we deliberately led him to believe it had been poisoned by you. But we did _not_ tell him what to do after. If we’d known beforehand what would happen to you on Honoghr—”

Thrawn lifted a hand, waving Skywalker’s apology away. “As it was merely an unpreventable incident, for which no one can be blamed,” he said icily, “let’s consider the matter settled and move on.”

Skywalker flushed. Perhaps he hadn’t expected to be called out for his wording; likely, he could get away with such face-saving statements here, among politicians, but such things never worked with Thrawn. 

‘For what _happened_ to you;’ ‘what would _happen_ to you on Honoghr;’ as if no one had personally committed the deed. As if no one had given Rukh the order. Pellaeon resisted the urge to shake his head in disgust and forced himself to say nothing. Thrawn’s statement had served as a warning to him as much as to Skywalker; he wanted Pellaeon to keep his mouth shut.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up, then,” Skywalker said. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it without saying anything, then shrugged and opened it again. “Some of us didn’t expect you to show up in person. We expected a holo … or a lookalike, maybe.”

Thrawn raised an eyebrow.

“Your public appearances since Bilbringi have been … well, sparse,” Skywalker explained. 

“His public appearances _before_ Bilbringi were sparse,” Pellaeon said stiffly. _Public appearances_ — as if Thrawn spent his valuable time planning publicity stunts like some Core World politician, rather than plotting his military campaigns. 

“You believed I was not physically fit for a public appearance?” Thrawn said to Skywalker.

“Or mentally fit, maybe,” said Skywalker with a shrug.

In the silence that followed, Skywalker shifted uncomfortably in his seat, perhaps sensing that he’d overstepped his bounds. Pellaeon attempted to catch Thrawn’s eye, to no avail.

“How strange it would be if I were not,” said Thrawn placidly, “considering I was more than fit enough to defeat your forces in every minor skirmish or major battle since. Unless you believe that was the work of an imposter, too? In any case, I can offer you no comfort. The new Empire shares little in common with that led by Palpatine; should I die, my forces will not descend into chaos or incompetence. There are thousands of capable and intelligent commanders waiting to take my place, and I daresay your Rebellion wouldn’t notice the transition in the slightest.”

He gestured casually to Pellaeon, whose heart skipped a beat. He tried not to look too surprised or too pleased, especially with Skywalker watching.

“And as I said,” Thrawn continued, “it is not a topic we need to discuss. We are here so you can determine that I am not an imposter. Have you determined that?”

Skywalker hesitated, his eyes flickering to Pellaeon. He rubbed his palms together nervously before turning back to Thrawn.

“Actually, to do that…” He hesitated again, licking his lips. Surely, Pellaeon thought, nothing he had to say could _possibly_ be as annoying as all these long pauses. “To do that, I need to use the Force. And I don’t want to do that without your permission.”

Thrawn said nothing. His eyebrows twitched; even after years of familiarity with Thrawn, Pellaeon couldn’t tell if this signified outrage, amusement, or some near-hysterical mixture of the two. To hear Skywalker, of all people, speak of _consent_ — it was almost too much for Pellaeon to bear.

“So…” Skywalker said, leaning forward.

“Use the Force to do what?” Pellaeon asked, his voice coming out a little waspish. “Feel free to specify.”

“I believe he intends to read my mind,” said Thrawn, a faint smile touching his lips for the first time since they’d left for Coruscant. “Am I to understand your delegates will not sign the treaty until you have done so?” he said to Skywalker. “Your father made similar attempts before he died, but I can’t say he ever asked for permission first. You’ll find any attempt less than useless. My species is not compatible with yours, telepathically.”

Skywalker’s face was stiff, his eyes flat. “You’ll understand if I need to check that personally,” he said.

“By all means.” Thrawn gestured to his temple roughly, and Pellaeon guessed that Skywalker couldn’t read the subtle hint of exasperation on Thrawn’s face. For a long moment, there was silence; Skywalker’s eyebrows furrowed in intense concentration, but so far as Pellaeon could tell, there was no other indicator that the Force was being used at all. It was quite unlike his experience with C’baoth — there were no dramatic gestures or changes in lighting, no mysterious hum of energy in the air or ominous, archaic words.

After several long minutes, Skywalker sat back, his face relaxing into a sort of soft puzzlement. He regarded Thrawn for a moment, then shook his head with a sheepish smile. “You weren’t kidding,” he said. “It’s like trying to read a droid.”

Thrawn stiffened, his displeasure at this statement clear only to Pellaeon. Unaware of his misstep — though how could he _possibly_ think it was appropriate to compare a non-human to a droid in this day and age? — Skywalker smiled and gestured to his own forehead. 

“Do you think maybe I could touch your temple?” he said. “I know it’s a weird thing to ask, but sometimes when you have a physical connection—”

“Absolutely not,” Pellaeon growled. Skywalker sent him a baffled glance, as if he couldn’t understand why anyone would forbid him from touching the enemy. 

“You will have to consider this sufficient,” Thrawn said, his tone polite but clipped. 

“That won’t work,” Skywalker said, frowning.

“Then summon Rukh,” said Thrawn calmly, “and hear his testimony. He is far better equipped to determine my identity than you are.”

Skywalker’s eyebrows shot up at this suggestion, his mouth dropping open. Pellaeon struggled to control his own displeasure at hearing Rukh’s name again; he ground his teeth so hard he felt they might collapse into dust. 

“You want me to call him in here?” Skywalker said doubtfully. “I mean, I know you … greeted him outside, but…”

“He knows my scent,” said Thrawn, lifting one shoulder in a muted shrug. “You have no point of reference for the structure and composition of my mind; if I had genuinely switched places with an imposter, you would have no way to know. Rukh would.”

Skywalker glanced at Pellaeon, as if asking his opinion. Pellaeon hooded his eyes and said nothing, but he was sure his disapproval was plain to see. Clearly, _Skywalker_ saw it, because he quickly turned his attention back to Thrawn as if Pellaeon wasn’t there. And _Thrawn_ didn’t seem to notice Pellaeon’s disapproval at all.

“If you insist,” said Skywalker. He raised his comlink to his lips and said, “Rukh? Grand Admiral Thrawn has requested your presence in Chamber Nesh—”

The door to the chamber hissed open before Skywalker could finish his sentence. They could hear his voice, tinny and one second behind real-time, issuing from the comlink on Rukh’s wrist as he entered the room.

“Oh,” said Skywalker, belatedly lowering his own comlink. “Good. Rukh, we need your help. Can you confirm that the Grand Admiral is the same man you served before Bilbringi?”

Rukh stood equidistant between Skywalker and Thrawn, his hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t even glance Thrawn’s way — it seemed to Pellaeon like he avoided the Grand Admiral deliberately, perhaps to make up for his show of deference outside. 

“Has it done something to suggest otherwise, my Master?” Rukh asked. 

Pellaeon flinched as if he’d been slapped. He whipped his head around to stare at Thrawn, whose face had hardened almost imperceptibly, fingers tightening on the arm of his chair. Skywalker, for his part, seemed almost amazed by Rukh’s choice of pronoun. He glanced nervously at his guests — but, Pellaeon noticed, he did not chastise Rukh at all.

“Nothing, really,” Skywalker said instead. “At least, not so far. It’s just a precaution. The committee doesn’t want to sign a treaty if there’s any chance he could be an imposter.”

“And if it was, my Master?” said Rukh steadily. “Then you would continue to war with the Empire despite recent losses?”

This time, it was Skywalker’s face that hardened. He avoided the question, gesturing at Thrawn. “You took his scent earlier, didn’t you, Rukh?” he said. “If that wasn’t enough, then you can do it again. You have his permission.”

Thrawn sat up a little straighter in his seat, a movement so slight that Pellaeon was sure Skywalker wouldn’t notice — especially not with his attention centered on the Noghri. But Pellaeon saw it, and it made him feel sick to his stomach about the scene before him; it looked like, despite his cold tone and dignified words, Thrawn was trying to press himself back against the chair, to put as much distance between himself and Rukh as possible. He watched helplessly as Rukh approached Thrawn for the second time that day. This time, Thrawn didn’t offer his hand to the Noghri; he stayed still, forcing Rukh to bend down until his nose was level with Thrawn’s hand. 

Without asking, Rukh dug his fingers under Thrawn’s sleeve and pushed it up, revealing the pale blue ligature scars etched deep into Thrawn’s wrist. He turned Thrawn’s hand over matter-of-factly and pressed his nose against the pulse point there. Thrawn held perfectly still, his face the picture of composure — but as soon as Rukh’s nose touched his skin, his eyes slid closed, and they stayed that way until Rukh finally moved away.

“No change,” Rukh said, his voice a husky growl. “I smell its ancestors in its blood, a thousand generations of peasants and toilers — beasts barely above the threshold of sentient life, who have never seen the stars. Savage animals who know only petty war and the underbelly of ice; creatures who crawl like slugs through damp caves. I can smell the freshness of galactic exploration on its skin. It is still a commoner. It is still unfit to rule. It is unchanged.”

Thrawn looked at Rukh, unblinking and apparently unphased. Across the room, Skywalker hesitated; he looked troubled by Rukh’s description, his eyes flickering from the Noghri to the Chiss in confusion, but eventually he gathered his wits and nodded.

“You may go, Rukh. Thank you,” he said. 

Rukh did not leave immediately. He turned at the waist, glancing at Thrawn, and Thrawn stared back at him with half-lidded eyes. Whatever passed between them then was utterly silent, not communicated to either Pellaeon or Skywalker — but after a long moment, Rukh nodded and left. The door hadn’t even shut behind him when Thrawn stood, brushing the wrinkles out of his tunic and gesturing for Pellaeon to stand, too.

“Our business is done here, Admiral,” he said, not addressing Skywalker at all. “It’s time we re-joined the committee.”

“Of course, sir,” said Pellaeon. “We’ve wasted enough time here, I think.”

He eyed Skywalker as he said it, and Skywalker didn’t even have the good grace to look away.


	4. Chapter 4

The initial conference lasted only four hours before the New Republic delegates started showing signs of fatigue. Solo had been in and out all through the meeting, and hadn’t come back from his last foray into the hall; Fey’lya was clearly not paying attention, except when he chimed in to make ill-informed complaints or ask aggressive questions. The remaining delegates seemed reticent, as if they had plenty to say but would rather say it amongst themselves, with Pellaeon and Thrawn safely out of the room. 

It wasn’t a surprise to either of them when Mon Mothma made an ostentatious show of checking her chrono and declared the conference done for the day. She barely glanced at Pellaeon and Thrawn as she stood; in a crisp, clear voice, she said, “We’ve arranged quarters for the two of you and your entourage here, of course. Have the guards show you the way.”

Thrawn cut his eyes at Pellaeon; though his face was almost entirely blank, Pellaeon felt he could read some amusement there. He raised his eyebrows a fraction to signify that he understood — the level of petty aggression here was almost laughable. They stood only after the rest of the committee was mostly gone, leaving only Garm Bel Iblis to hold the door for them.

There was a sense of respect — something close to camaraderie, even — between Bel Iblis and Thrawn. Pellaeon had noticed it right away, especially in contrast to the way the rest of the dignitaries treated them. He wondered absently, automatically, if Bel Iblis had approved of Rukh’s abduction and botched execution of Thrawn. Most likely, he’d had nothing to do with it — but after the fact, had he voiced his disapproval? Had he disapproved of it at all?

And had he watched the holo-recording? 

This was the part that truly made Pellaeon’s stomach twist. How many people at this conference had seen it? It wasn’t a bad bet that every dignitary around the table — Pellaeon excluded — had. But what about the guards leading them to their quarters? The palace workers who had access to their rooms when they were away? More _New_ _Republic_ citizens knew about Thrawn’s humiliation than _Imperial_ citizens did, that was certain — but how many of them only knew and how many had actually seen it?

The stormtroopers fell in step behind Pellaeon as he exited, two of them flanking Thrawn and forcing the New Republic guards to edge away. Was it Pellaeon’s imagination, or did he see a pair of palace workers whispering to each other at the end of the hall, their eyes shifting maliciously to Thrawn? 

Was one of them smiling? Were _both_ of them?

He pushed it out of his head. The holo-recording was not freely available on the Holonet, after all; he could only hope his suspicions were unfounded, that nobody here had seen it outside of the committee itself. That nobody here had seen it _at all,_ while he was wishing for hopeless things.

When they reached a hallway clearly intended for living quarters, Thrawn stopped and motioned for the New Republic guards to leave. They hesitated only a moment before obeying.

“Your rooms are to the west, I believe,” Thrawn said to the stormtroopers, indicating a series of doors along one side of the hallway. He helped Commander Qaebbir out of his lightweight rack, taking the ysalimir on his own shoulders. At a gesture from Thrawn, Pellaeon stepped up to Specialist Gruy and did the same thing, wincing as the ysalimir’s natural musky odor invaded his nose.

“Consider yourselves dismissed to Commander Qaebbir for the evening,” said Thrawn, adjusting the ysalimir rack’s straps around his narrow chest. “We will not require a nightly guard.” 

The commander saluted, turning about-face to bark orders at his troops. Thrawn and Pellaeon removed themselves to two doors on the east side of the hallway; somehow, out of all the quarters here, Thrawn had managed to isolate their options down to these two without being told. He tried one door and it slid open at his touch, an electronic voice inviting him to select a personal code.

As the stormtroopers dispersed, Thrawn stuck his head into the room, examining the surprisingly luxurious furniture. The ysalimir blinked and settled its chin along the back of Thrawn’s neck, where it seemed to fall asleep immediately.

“Adjoining rooms,” Thrawn remarked drily to Pellaeon. “How considerate.”

Pellaeon shuffled his feet, unsure what to say or how Thrawn expected him to react to this news. “I’m sure the door locks, sir,” he decided in the end. Thrawn tossed an unreadable look over his shoulder and then paused, examining Pellaeon’s face. After a long moment, he jerked his head toward the open room.

“Come inside,” he said. “We have much to discuss — and I don’t intend to stay in this uniform a moment longer.”

Obediently, Pellaeon followed him inside, keying the door shut behind them. He watched as Thrawn swiftly disassembled the ysalimir support rack, refitting it into its stable, non-portable form and setting the whole thing down not far from his bed. The ysalimir stayed asleep the entire time.

“What did you think of the conference?” Thrawn asked, crossing the room to his suitcase. True to his word, he unsealed his tunic right away, pausing only to check the settings on the small sonic laundry built into the wall before he started tossing his uniform items in. 

Pellaeon pulled a weighty antique chair away from the desk nearby and sat down heavily, slouching a little under his support rack as he huffed out a sigh. “If six delegates can’t decide on even a single term of a simple — and quite _generous_ — treaty, a treaty _they requested,_ no less … it’s no wonder their Senate has fallen apart.”

Thrawn exhaled through his nose, a quiet huffing sound which was the closest he ever got to a laugh. He pulled off his undershirt and tossed it in the laundry, revealing protruding ribs and collar bones, pale-blue patches of synthflesh, and a hollow stomach. Clinically, Pellaeon tried to assess the damage; at a guess, he’d say Thrawn had lost a bit more than thirty pounds since Bilbringi — all of it muscle, or so much of it muscle that it was pointless to mention the rest.

“They fear the loss of power, that’s all,” said Thrawn. He pulled his belt out of its loops with a lack of shyness typical for a soldier, and his trousers — already loose — slid down off his hips without assistance, stopping at his bruised-looking knees. Thrawn stepped out of the trousers and deftly kicked the bundle up into his hand. The patches of synthflesh were even more noticeable now, taking up huge swaths of his thighs; in fact, it seemed like almost everything above his knees had been replaced.

Pellaeon imagined a dozen sets of sharp Noghri teeth needling into Thrawn’s body, tearing off enormous strips of muscle and flesh, snapping tendons, gnawing through gristle and splintering bones with their powerful jaws as if it were nothing. He could almost hear the hiss of hot iron as the Noghri cauterized those wounds, stopping the bleeding and keeping Thrawn alive for more. 

He remembered accompanying Thrawn in the medical shuttle after the Noghri gave him up and seeing those open wounds, the edges singed and charred — the exposed bones and nicked edges of damaged organs, the green pus coating areas which had already grown infected from Honoghr’s poisoned dirt. He remembered Thrawn reaching out even while unconscious to hold Pellaeon’s hand, and he remembered feeling the flesh on Thrawn’s fingers slough and fold unnaturally beneath his own; he remembered looking down and seeing a blood-stained glimmer of bone inside Thrawn’s broken thumb.

“Gilad,” Thrawn said softly.

Pellaeon looked up sharply, his cheeks burning. He’d been caught staring. There was no rebuke in Thrawn’s face, though — only a strangely affectionate sort of contemplation and concern. He turned away from Pellaeon without another word, collecting his civilian clothes from the suitcase.

“You think it’s something of a panic response, then,” Pellaeon said. He let his eyes track down over Thrawn’s ribs once again, quickly, as Thrawn pulled a fresh shirt over his arms. 

“Essentially,” said Thrawn. “Many of them are stalling. Others — in particular, Bel Iblis — are making admirable but futile attempts to address concerns. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to realize their colleagues’ concerns are not real. There is perhaps too much trust between this particular group of delegates; they are too emotionally entrenched in each other to recognize any of their colleagues’ notable flaws.”

He tucked his shirt in carefully. These trousers, Pellaeon noted, did not require a belt, which only highlighted how loose his uniform was in comparison; perhaps it needed to be tailored again, after all. 

“So we’ll be here … how long, do you think?” Pellaeon asked.

Thrawn looked up in the middle of zipping his pants and stared up at the ceiling, as if the answer might be written there.

“Days, possibly,” he said, his voice heavy. “Perhaps a week. No longer than that; Organa Solo will tire of the game before then, and where she goes, the rest will follow. She is a natural politician and an adept filibusterer, but only when she truly believes in the issue at hand. And she doesn’t truly believe in this; she refuses to sign the treaty now only as a matter of pride.”

He pulled a sweater on over his shirt, adjusting the collar first, and then his hair. 

“Do you suppose they searched our luggage?” Pellaeon asked, his voice low.

“Do you suppose they bugged our rooms?” Thrawn shot back, his voice quite loud. Pellaeon glanced around nervously, but spotted no immediate sign of electronic devices — not that he _would_ see them, he supposed. When he stopped searching, he found Thrawn looking at him in amusement. 

“Oh, I suppose you’ve already found the bugs?” Pellaeon said sourly.

Thrawn’s lips twisted into something close to a smile. “Not at all,” he said. “Feel free to point out any you _do_ find — I only wished to tell you I’m reasonably sure they did not check our luggage.”

Pellaeon raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“No,” Thrawn said. He hauled his suitcase off the floor and onto the desk — handling the weight of it rather admirably for how thin he was, Pellaeon thought, but he would never say so aloud. Unlatching the suitcase, Thrawn swung its lid up and indicated a small, peculiar-looking device wedged into the lock. It was camouflaged perfectly; even with Thrawn pointing it out, Pellaeon could barely tell it was there.

“One of several precautionary methods I took before packing,” Thrawn said. “This camera has fed a continuous holo-feed to my personal datapad since I activated it — which was shortly after we landed.”

Pellaeon nodded, but his mind was a million klicks away. His eyes were focused not on the camera but on the label of a small box half-hidden by Thrawn’s folded clothes; although he couldn’t read the entire label, he’d seen similar packages often enough to recognize it for what it was — hair dye, with the small color swatch on the side showing it to be blue-black. He turned his gaze away casually, comparing the label to Thrawn’s hair in his peripheral vision; the shade was exactly the same.

But why was he surprised? he wondered as Thrawn shut the suitcase again. He’d seen Thrawn on Honoghr and in the hospital post-Bilbringi; his hair had been entirely white. In a way, Pellaeon supposed he’d been a little _too_ willing to accept it when Thrawn’s hair turned back to its proper color; he’d assumed the whiteness was some temporary effect easily fixed in the medbay, like a broken bone or a shallow wound. Like Thrawn could simply wash his hair with bacta and scrub the whiteness away.

“Does that comfort you?” Thrawn asked, calling Pellaeon’s attention back.

“Oh,” said Pellaeon. It took him a moment to recall the thread of conversation. “Yes. It does.”

Thrawn slid the suitcase off the desk and back onto the floor, but he eyed Pellaeon suspiciously the entire time. “You’re distracted,” he said. 

Pellaeon huffed out a laugh, but it was true: he _was_ distracted. He couldn’t even think of a proper response before his thoughts wandered again, the image of Rukh forcing itself into his mind again. Rukh kneeling before Thrawn on the tarmac outside — Rukh with his nose pressed against Thrawn’s wrist — Rukh and the rest of his people on Honoghr, with Thrawn’s legs tied to posts and his white uniform torn to shreds in the mud beneath him—

“Yes,” Pellaeon sighed, “I am distracted.” He shook the thoughts away as best as he could, but one look at Thrawn’s face was all he needed to know the other man could tell what he’d been thinking. Thrawn’s eyes were far away now, too, his unseeing gaze fixed on the wall and his arms crossed loosely over his chest. He avoided Pellaeon’s eyes the way he often did when this subject came up.

“Rukh’s presence here bothers you,” Thrawn said, his voice coming out robotic and low.

“Of course it does,” said Pellaeon. “It doesn’t bother you?”

Thrawn turned away. He fetched his suitcase off the floor again and simply stood there for a moment, like he couldn’t think of anything plausibly casual to do with it, before transferring it to the luxuriant bed in the middle of the room. With his back to Pellaeon, Thrawn pulled his clothes out one item at a time and shut the suitcase again — careful not to reveal the box of hair dye, less careful to hide the bottles of throat-scorching alien liquors he’d wrapped in his sleeping clothes — before hanging his clothes in the closet.

“I’ll never be able to sleep on a bed like this,” Thrawn said, touching the soft mattress and keeping his face turned away. “Will you?”

“Sir,” said Pellaeon patiently, “it _must_ bother you. It even bothers Organa Solo and Skywalker, and _they’re_ the ones who—”

He swallowed his words. Across the room, Thrawn unfolded a civilian shirt and fluffed the wrinkles out; Pellaeon could see only the back of his head and the line of his shoulders, which seemed to indicate Thrawn hadn’t heard.

“They’re the ones who ordered it,” Pellaeon forced himself to finish. It left a bitter taste on his tongue. “Or at the very least, they’re the ones who lied to the Noghri. Organa Solo — Rukh told you himself that she was the one who turned them against you. When they found out it was Vader who poisoned their planet, not you, it was only the Noghri’s idiotic blood loyalty to Organa Solo that kept her alive.”

Thrawn took his time hanging the last of his clothes. He shut the closet door with a silent click and stood there for a moment, perhaps composing himself or perhaps just thinking of what Pellaeon might say next, and how he might counter it. When he finally turned around, there was no hint of distress on his face.

“I usually sleep on a trooper’s cot,” he said conversationally.

Pellaeon stared at him, heart sinking. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I know.”

Thrawn raised an eyebrow, genuine surprise evident on his face.

“I’ve seen it,” Pellaeon told him, looking away. “After one of your private meetings with Rukh a month or so ago. You weren’t answering your comm afterward; I thought perhaps… well, I went to your quarters to make sure nothing happened, that’s all. So I’ve seen your cot, naturally.”

Silently, Thrawn walked over to him and perched on the edge of his desk. Pellaeon looked up at him; from the front, the patch of synthflesh on Thrawn’s jaw wasn’t visible, but from below — like where Pellaeon sat now — the pale-blue strip of flesh stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of Thrawn’s skin. They’d left his face mostly intact, Pellaeon reflected. The wounds there had been shallow and easily healed by bacta rather than surgery and synthflesh — mostly. Perhaps the Noghri had worried about killing him before they were done having their fun.

“You checked on me?” Thrawn finished for him, a slight lilt to his voice turning the statement into a question. “The day I fainted?”

The inside of Pellaeon’s mouth felt sour again. “Yes,” he said. He remembered walking into Thrawn’s room — heart thudding in his chest, trying not to think about who Thrawn had been meeting with or what had happened months before at Bilbringi, when Rukh lured Thrawn away from the bridge. He’d rushed into Thrawn’s quarters with his heart pounding, certain he was walking into something terrible, and instead he’d found Thrawn still halfway in his uniform, curled on his side in the little trooper’s cot built into the bulkhead.

His tunic was gone, his undershirt pulled up above his ribs. His trousers were unbuttoned; his boots were gone. Pellaeon had fixed what he could automatically and with a sensation of numb horror at what he saw. He’d dressed Thrawn back up properly and allowed him to sleep in his clothes rather than wake and discover … whatever Rukh had done.

Whatever Rukh had done _again._

Glancing up at Thrawn now, he saw a muscle jumping in the Grand Admiral’s jaw, making the almost-invisible synthflesh stretch and pull.

“It wasn’t what it looked like,” Thrawn said, his voice neutral and soft. “That was the day General Skywalker approached me regarding a treaty for the first time.”

“Yes, I remember,” Pellaeon said. He refused to look away from Thrawn this time, forcing himself to maintain eye contact as Thrawn explained.

“He suggested then that I might not be myself,” Thrawn said. “But the way he phrased it … purely by accident, I believe, he suggested I may have been … overtaken. I was in exile for seven years, you understand. If I encountered a Far Outsider during that time—”

Pellaeon inhaled sharply, then cursed himself for it as Thrawn heard the gasp and cut himself off. “You thought you’d been infected,” Pellaeon finished for him. “Without even knowing it? You thought you’d been infected for _years_? You mean you genuinely considered that _everything_ you’ve done to fight them might have somehow been at their behest? That you were so brainwashed that … that...”

Thrawn drew back almost imperceptibly as frustration stole Pellaeon’s words away. “It was a possibility which needed to be excluded,” he said. “Rukh visited me afterward for an exchange of information. He told me everything Leia Organa Solo told him to say, and then he supplied me with genuine surveillance. And when he’d finished, I asked him to check. With his sense of smell … if I had been overtaken, he would know.”

Silence filled the room. Pellaeon leaned back in his chair, giving himself more room to study Thrawn’s face. 

“You understand you were half-dressed when I found you,” he said flatly. “I dressed you myself, so you wouldn’t be…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence, wasn't sure if he'd been worried about potential embarrassment or distress or even further trauma. To his surprise, Thrawn only nodded, his face giving nothing away. “He smelled nothing from my wrist. No hint of the Far Outsiders, that is. But many cultures say the navel is the seat of life; I thought perhaps, if there was any malevolent presence available to sense, he would sense it best from there.”

“And you couldn’t handle it,” said Pellaeon, a mix of anxiety and pure terror turning his voice ugly. He imagined Thrawn alone in his quarters, meeting secretly with the same Noghri who'd once betrayed him and left him nearly dead. “So you fainted, and what? _Rukh_ put you to bed?”

Thrawn slipped off the side of the desk, moving back to his closed suitcase. “I assume so,” he said, lowering himself onto the mattress. “I did not wake until the following day.”

“Yes,” said Pellaeon sharply. “I’m aware. Did he stay with you? Watch over you, perhaps, until I came through the door? Did he sleep on the bed with you, or did he curl up at your feet like a dog?”

Thrawn stretched out on his back, the supine position making his ribs stand out all the more. Staring up at the ceiling, he said, “Nothing happened, Gilad.”

How could he be so sure? Pellaeon wanted desperately to ask, but in the end, he only muttered, “So far as you know.”

Thrawn tilted his head to throw Pellaeon a dry look. “I think I’d notice,” he said. And then, sounding like he wanted desperately _not_ to say this aloud but couldn’t force himself to stop in time, he added, “It’s not as if I … don’t know how it feels.”

Pellaeon only stared at him until Thrawn looked away, visibly embarrassed. He rested a forearm over his eyes, hiding most of his face from view — and cementing Pellaeon’s already low opinion of himself for bringing this topic up in the first place. He felt so insensitive it bordered on the monstrous, like a psychopath — like the Emperor, who used to taunt his inner circle with about the same dearth of empathy Pellaeon had displayed. 

Cheeks burning with shame, Pellaeon stood, making sure the scrape of his chair against the floor was audible. He walked to the door between his room and Thrawn’s and palmed the release.

“I shouldn’t have brought it up, sir,” he said, his voice sounding weary and inadequate to his own ears. “It’s been a long day. I’ll retire to my quarters unless you need me. It, ah — it’s set so you can lock it from your side, sir.”

Thrawn sat up slowly, watching Pellaeon as he retreated to the other room. His face was utterly blank as the door slid shut.


	5. Chapter 5

As Thrawn predicted, neither of them slept well that night. The beds genuinely _were_ too luxurious, even for Pellaeon — who’d long since replaced his standard trooper’s cot with a bed fit for a high-ranking officer. Luckily for them, it seemed like the New Republic committee had fared even worse. 

“This provision has got to go,” said Organa Solo less than an hour into their morning session.

Pellaeon was halfway back from the breakfast spread in the corner when Organa Solo spoke and he paused for a moment, balancing the plates he’d prepared for himself and Thrawn as he glanced at the treaty over Organa Solo’s shoulder. There were deep bags beneath her eyes, expertly concealed with makeup; up close like this, he could see them, but he only knew to look for them in the first place because Thrawn had pointed them out via comlink SMS shortly before the meeting started. 

“The Jedi provision,” Pellaeon murmured. He could smell her breakfast — a Corellian scramble — wafting up from her plate, and the scent of it made his stomach feel hollow. 

“Yes,” she said, eyeing him beadily until he moved away. Crossing quickly to the other side of the table, Pellaeon set Thrawn’s plate before him. It was laden with samples of the most bland items available for consumption — the foods least likely to cause nausea, including a local fruit which had been skinned and cooked until it was nothing more than a flavorless paste, a helping of unseasoned steamed vegetables, a small bowl of hot cereal, plain digestive biscuits and rice — but Thrawn scarcely glanced at it all before pushing it out of his way. 

“Thank you, Gilad,” he said, and replaced the plate with his datapad as if to soften the blow. _Look, I’m simply too busy to eat at the moment,_ he seemed to be saying. It didn’t escape Pellaeon’s notice that he was ‘Gilad’ again, even in the presence of so many New Republic dignitaries. He supposed if Thrawn was willing to call him by his first name _here_ , instead of just in his office or other private settings, that meant it was more or less a permanent change. 

“We can’t possibly agree to any strictures on the Jedi Academy,” Organa Solo continued, her voice firm. “The Academy is a _New Republic_ asset; it is staffed by New Republic teachers and attended fully by New Republic students. It’s not and has _never_ been neutral ground, nor should it be.”

Pellaeon, his mouth full, raised an eyebrow. 

“Is that so?” said Thrawn, affecting a tone of pleasant surprise. He opened a new tab on his datapad, displaying the names of all known students of Skywalker’s Jedi Academy. “The Hapes Consortium officially withdrew its name from the Senate register six months ago, and Dathomir has never been a part of it — yet I see right away that the student Tenel Ka Djo, reportedly a classmate and close friend to the Solo twins, draws her lineage from both. In fact, I see she is the heir to the Hapa throne. Certainly, we cannot classify her as a _New Republic_ student. When shall she be turned away from the Academy, then?”

Organa Solo’s face was like stone. “The Hapes Consortium is not an enemy to the New Republic.”

“Nor is the Empire,” Thrawn said. He tapped the treaty meaningfully. “Should I assume Tenel Ka Djo’s expulsion notice is on its way?” 

He shifted his gaze to Skywalker, who had stopped eating his breakfast and was now watching the exchange with a sick look on his face.

“I won’t turn students away, Leia,” he said earnestly, sounding pained.

Organa Solo cast a quelling stare his way and did not deign to respond. To Thrawn, she said, “Your proposal is nothing more than a warlord grasping at every resource he can get his hands on once the fighting is done. You say you’re just attempting to establish neutral ground, but that’s not what this is in the slightest; all you’re trying to do is wrest our greatest accomplishments out of your hands, to use them for yourselves.”

A few seats down, Garm Bel Iblis shifted uncomfortably, cutting his eyes at Skywalker. He disagreed with Organa Solo, Pellaeon realized — good. They could use that later on.

“I am proposing no such thing,” said Thrawn calmly. He highlighted a portion of the treaty and set his datapad to display it as a holo for everyone at the table to see. “This clause states only that the Jedi Academy _itself_ will not be pledged to any given system of government. The students will be instructed in the Jedi Arts, not in politics; those loyal to the Empire upon arrival will not be swayed otherwise through coursework, and those loyal to the Rebellion will likewise be permitted to retain their points of view.”

“Keeping politics out of religion,” Bel Iblis put in. There was a wry slant to his lips that Pellaeon matched automatically, both of them remembering the millenia-old laws — now defunct — which once kept religion out of the Old Republic Senate.

“Precisely,” said Thrawn. 

Silently, the rest of the delegates examined the holo; Borsk Fey’lya’s eyes seemed blank and distant, as if he didn’t even _intend_ to understand the provision. Mon Mothma’s lips pulled down into a speculative frown as she read, her gaze cutting every now and then to Organa Solo.

Only Han Solo refused to examine it; he stood from the table and filled his breakfast plate again while everyone else was reading. Taking his seat afterward, he glanced at Thrawn’s plate — still full — and pointed one grubby finger at it.

“You gonna eat all that?” he asked.

One by one, the delegates looked up, flickering their eyes first at Solo and then at Thrawn. Only Thrawn didn’t seem to react; he glanced from his datapad to the plate with disinterest, as if he’d forgotten it was there. Mentally, Pellaeon crossed his fingers, praying that Thrawn would just say yes — and then _actually_ _eat_ _it_ — or at least come up with a feasible excuse. 

“It’s not compatible with my system,” Thrawn said.

Garm Bel Iblis looked doubtfully at Pellaeon, who gave him an aloof, defiant look in return, daring him to say a single word. If this was the excuse Thrawn wanted to go with, then come hell or high water, Pellaeon would back him up.

“Would you … perhaps prefer something else?” asked Mothma doubtfully. Her deeply-ingrained manners — honed for years in the political circles of Coruscant — seemed at war with her natural dislike of the Empire and all those in it, but Pellaeon had to give it to her: at least she’d asked.

“No,” said Thrawn, returning his gaze to the datapad. “This will be sufficient. Thank you.”

Eyebrows raised, Bel Iblis turned back to the treaty. Organa Solo joined him, but no one else did. Mon Mothma regarded Thrawn thoughtfully, saying nothing but broadcasting her every opinion on her face. 

“A _very_ delicate constitution it must be,” said Fey’lya without any apparent guile. “One would think from your appearance that your digestive system would be almost identical to humans’. Even mine is very similar, and as you can see—” He gestured to the thick fur covering his snout and touched his long, pointed ears. “—Bothans share very little else with humans, appearance-wise.”

Thrawn said nothing to this, keeping his eyes on his datapad. For a moment, Solo was silent, chewing his food without any obvious interest in the conversation he’d started. When he swallowed, though, he wiped his hands on his napkin and said to Thrawn, “So, what, you’re just not gonna eat?”

“Han,” said Organa Solo under her breath, so quietly Pellaeon almost couldn’t tell it was her.

“Well, no offense,” said Solo. Thrawn side-eyed him, pulled into the conversation against his will. “It’s just that it doesn’t look like there’s a whole hell of a lot of extra weight to spare, you know what I mean?”

“His species is naturally slim,” Pellaeon said. He regretted saying it immediately; beside him, Thrawn’s lips twitched into a frown, and across from him, Solo raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, is that how the Imperial propaganda drones are handling it?”

“ _Han_ ,” said Organa Solo, a little louder this time.

“I’m just saying,” said Solo, kicking back in his seat, “he was slim before Bilbringi, but he wasn't _that_ slim.”

Pellaeon sprang to his feet, his chair clattering back against the floor behind him. Thrawn put a cautioning hand on his forearm, but Pellaeon scarcely noticed it.

“By _all_ means,” he said to Solo, his voice stormy and loud enough to make Fey’lya flinch, “continue to boast about your wife’s war crimes. I can certainly think of no better way to usher in an era of peace than _that_.”

“Gilad,” said Thrawn, sounding toneless as he pulled on Pellaeon’s sleeve. Pellaeon ignored him, continuing to glower at Solo until Thrawn turned to the delegates and said, “Forgive us. The temper is inescapable; he’s from Corellia.”

“Ours is also from Corellia,” said Organa Solo, pinning her husband with a flinty glare.

“And we apologize, too,” Skywalker cut in, leaning forward to pull Solo back into his seat. “It’s none of our business, anyway. We’re here to discuss the treaty, not…” 

His eyes flickered to Thrawn’s plate. He didn’t finish his sentence.

“Perhaps a brief recess is in order,” Mon Mothma suggested. Begrudgingly, Pellaeon grabbed his chair off the ground and righted it, refusing to even glance at the New Republic delegates. By the time he tuned back into their conversation — still fuming — they had apparently agreed with Mon Mothma’s suggestion and were switching their datapads off, each of them delving into personal conversations as they left.

Thrawn remained sitting, the plate of bland food untouched at his elbow. He was watching Pellaeon thoughtfully as the others cleared the room. Whatever he had to say — if anything — would have to wait, though; Skywalker lingered behind the rest, and when everyone else had gone, he crossed quickly to Thrawn and placed a hand on his forearm.

“I really am sorry about that,” he said. “Leia will talk to him — and he won’t be present from here on out if you don’t want him to be. I’m pretty sure he’d rather be anywhere else, anyway.”

Thrawn eyed the hand on his arm until Skywalker moved it away. Hesitating, Skywalker glanced at Pellaeon and then at the open door into the hall. He bit his lip before turning his eyes back on Thrawn, who had removed an Imperial-issue canteen from his belt and swigged from it.

“You handled it well,” Skywalker said quietly.

“Your opinion means so much to me,” said Thrawn, voice dry as he lowered the canteen. 

“I mean…” Here, Skywalker hesitated again. “It says a lot about you, that’s all,” he said. “About your character. I know it wasn’t a … pleasant interaction. Getting scrutinized like that in front of everybody — I can’t imagine how distressing or embarrassing it must be to—”

Thrawn’s eyebrows raised by increments, each word offending him more, as if Skywalker had designed this conversation to be as personally insulting and patronizing as it could possibly be. Pellaeon felt another surge of anger rising in him, and Skywalker must have sensed it, too, because he rushed himself along.

“But I think it worked in your favor here — might have changed some opinions. That’s all I’ll say.”

He missed the significant glance Thrawn and Pellaeon shared, both of them smoldering with disdain. When Skywalker left — _finally_ — Thrawn turned back to his datapad as if nothing had been said. He reached into his tunic and removed a large capsule filled with what looked like desiccated, dried leaves. He palmed it into his mouth and swallowed it with another swig from the canteen; if he noticed Pellaeon staring at him, he didn’t acknowledge it.

“It’s too much to hope that we’ll ratify even one provision today, I suppose,” Thrawn said.

Pellaeon sat heavily in his righted chair. “What was that?” he said. Thrawn’s eyes shifted to him. “That capsule you just took,” Pellaeon clarified. “Was that an absorbic?”

Thrawn’s eyes shifted away. “Surely you don’t need me to tell you,” he said. “You must have taken it before yourself.”

Pellaeon gave himself a brief moment to process this, then stood and crossed the empty room. Outside, he could see Mon Mothma and Bel Iblis at the far end of the hall, well out of earshot. No one else was in sight. He closed the door carefully and stormed back to Thrawn’s side.

“Why the hell are you taking an absorbic?” he asked. “If you’re planning to enter a battle soon, I’d think you would have the good grace to at least _tell_ me.”

“It’s efficient,” Thrawn said. 

_“Efficient?”_ Pellaeon repeated. Well, that was one way to put it, he supposed, but it certainly wasn’t the word _he_ would have chosen. He grabbed the Grand Admiral’s plate, pushing it across the table to Thrawn until the edge of it was pressed against his forearm so hard it made a dent in the fabric of his sleeve. 

“You’re telling me,” said Pellaeon, waving a finger over the unseasoned fruit paste on Thrawn’s place, “that _this_ makes you nauseous, but a massive capsule of stormtroopers’ absorbic — _that_ you can swallow, no problem? And what did you swallow it _with_?”

He snatched the canteen, expecting Thrawn to fight him for it — but Thrawn only watched, disinterested and absent, as Pellaeon unscrewed the cap and held the canteen to his nose. The scent of alcohol, sharp and strong and stinging, hit him immediately.

“You can swallow absorbic,” he said with disdain, putting the canteen back down. “And you can swallow it with some of the strongest alcohol in the galaxy … but you can’t swallow an unflavored digestive biscuit? _That_ makes you throw up?”

Thrawn glanced down at the plate of now-cold breakfast food as if it were full of worms. “It is not entirely a matter of nausea,” he said, keeping his voice low despite the closed door. “As I said, it’s a matter of efficiency. A single capsule of absorbic provides far more nutrients, not to mention calories, than an entire plate of…” He gestured vaguely at the food Pellaeon had selected for him. “...this.”

Pellaeon could feel his eyebrows pulling down into a glare, quite against his will. He fought to smooth his face out and sound calm. “I know absorbic is full of calories,” he said, as evenly as he could. “It's also full of _stims_. It's addictive. It's full of chemicals _deliberately_ _designed_ to put a stop to normal bodily functions for maximum performance on a battlefield. _No one_ is supposed to take it on a regular basis, sir.”

“And who said I’m taking it on a regular basis?” asked Thrawn, eyebrows raised.

Pellaeon scoffed. “You’re eating practically nothing,” he said. “You wouldn’t be alive if you weren’t supplementing your diet somehow. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before — of all things, sir, really — _absorbic_?”

Abruptly, Thrawn’s face seemed to shut down, perhaps spurred on by Pellaeon's tone; his expression went blank, his eyes dull as he focused entirely on his datapad. 

“Why _not_ absorbic?” he asked, his voice almost mulishly neutral. 

Pellaeon cast another quick glance at the closed door. He pushed Thrawn’s plate even closer to him, using the ceramic edge of it to nudge Thrawn’s datapad several inches away. 

“At least eat _something_ ,” he said. “If you’re taking absorbic, you’ve got no reason not to. It’s not like you’ll vomit it up.”

The column of Thrawn’s throat flexed as he glanced down at the plate. To Pellaeon, it looked very much like someone suppressing a gag reflex or swallowing bile. 

“That’s a flawed theory,” Thrawn said, his voice coming out hoarse and out-of-breath. “And it’s not one I’d like to test here and now.”

“You can’t throw up if you’ve taken absorbic,” Pellaeon persisted. He grabbed Thrawn’s hand and manually uncurled his fingers, forcing a pair of eating utensils into Thrawn’s grip. “That’s your problem, isn’t it, sir? You can’t eat because of nausea?" He knew Thrawn wouldn't contradict him on this, but couldn't help daring him to tell the truth. When Thrawn said nothing, Pellaeon could feel himself growing even more obstinate in response. "Well, that’s taken care of now, so eat,” he said.

Thrawn stared down at the utensils clasped loosely in his hand. His eyes shifted to the plate and his lips tightened into something like a grimace. Pellaeon watched it all, waiting for Thrawn to either eat or present another argument to explain why he couldn't. Neither happened; Thrawn only stared helplessly at the plate.

Losing some of his ire, Pellaeon sat back and said softly, “Or is it something else?”

Thrawn’s eyes slid shut, but only briefly. He placed the utensils firmly on the table before him and scooted back in his chair, putting distance between himself and the smell of food. “Such as what?” he said. 

Pellaeon felt as though he’d built a trap for Thrawn and then walked right into it himself. He looked between Thrawn’s plate and the closed door, unwilling to put his suspicions into words.

“You worry that I’m addicted to the stimulants?” Thrawn guessed, his eyes scanning Pellaeon’s face. 

“Peripherally, I suppose,” Pellaeon said. The words came out as a sigh. “But that’s not my main concern.”

He ignored the way Thrawn’s face first twitched in surprise and then froze with realization; Pellaeon crossed to the door again, confirming once more that none of the New Republic delegates had lingered in the hall. He eyed the ysalimiri in their support racks as he sat down. Nobody could be eavesdropping on them … yet he still hesitated to say what he really thought.

Putting aside the absorbic question, he said quite roughly, “You need to see a psychiatrist.”

Thrawn favored him with a look of cool disgust.

“Don’t give me that,” said Pellaeon sharply. “You talked to Dr. Yegm in the medbay, didn’t you? He’s been on-call ever since. Why not talk to him again?”

“By all means,” said Thrawn, his lips twitching with barely concealed irritation. “Let’s summon him at once. Tell the New Republic delegates to prepare a room.”

“When we get back to the _Chimaera_ , then,” said Pellaeon. 

“I did not _talk_ to him in the medbay,” Thrawn said as if he hadn’t heard Pellaeon’s latest. “He visited me between surgeries. I wasn’t in a state to speak.”

He indicated his jaw, specifically the strip of synthflesh underneath it, and Pellaeon understood. But despite understanding, he couldn’t be sure that Thrawn’s version of events was even 50% true — it seemed equally likely to him that Thrawn had been capable of speech but simply refused to hold a conversation, and it seemed possible as well that Thrawn _had_ spoken to Dr. Yegm, but no longer wished to admit it. He knew, too, that Dr. Yegm had visited more than once, for more than one incident — and that Thrawn had talked to him the last time, at least enough to convince Dr. Yegm that he was fine.

“How are you going to handle the rest of our meals here?” Pellaeon asked, staring down once more at Thrawn’s untouched plate.

He saw a flicker of something like trepidation in Thrawn’s eyes. 

“I’ll tell them I’ve purchased my own provisions, if necessary,” he said, not meeting Pellaeon’s eyes. “We’re under no obligation to eat with the Rebellion. I’ll send the stormtroopers out for food when needed and take my meals in my quarters; I don’t see why it should become an issue.”

“Because you’re _starving_ yourself,” Pellaeon forced himself to say. “And they can _see_ it, sir. If you have no pride for your own image, at least have some for mine. I can’t stand to be seen as the incompetent officer who let Grand Admiral Thrawn starve just when the Empire was on the cusp of victory.”

He expected Thrawn to at least respond to this — with a wry joke, if not with a sincere answer — but all he got was an exasperated look. Making pointed eye contact with Pellaeon, Thrawn leaned forward and speared an unseasoned root vegetable with his fork. Pellaeon watched him chew it, unsure whether to feel satisfied or ashamed.

“Well, good,” he said gruffly when Thrawn raised an eyebrow at him. “There’s a whole plate where that came from.”

Thrawn didn’t respond. He was still poking listlessly at his food when the New Republic delegates returned.

Conspicuously, Han Solo was not with them.


	6. Chapter 6

Rukh was lurking across the courtyard when they exited at midday. Pellaeon scowled at him, certain the Noghri could see his expression even from a distance — and he was so absorbed in scowling that he didn’t notice Thrawn beckoning Rukh over until it was too late.

“ _Sir_ ,” said Pellaeon, scandalized, as Rukh trotted over to them.

“Peace, Gilad,” Thrawn said. Pellaeon opened his mouth to argue the point, but Thrawn placed his hand on Pellaeon’s forearm — a gentle, affectionate touch — and Pellaeon’s mouth snapped closed again of its own volition. He watched in silent disapproval as Rukh crossed the courtyard, slowing as he reached them.

“Master,” he said, inclining his head in a subtle bow; Pellaeon glanced around wildly, making sure there was no one in earshot. Thrawn’s lips twitched into a sour smile.

“Rukh,” he said. “Join us.”

“A mission?” asked Rukh, tensing into a pre-battle stance.

“An aimless walk,” Thrawn corrected him. Rukh glanced at Pellaeon, ostensibly checking if he approved, but really shooting him a covert smug look. Pellaeon didn’t respond; couldn’t force himself to; knew he’d lose his mind if he even tried.

He fell into step beside Thrawn, with Rukh on the Grand Admiral’s left side and him on his right. Dimly, he heard Rukh’s gravelly voice and Thrawn’s cultured, modulated tones in response, but he couldn’t force himself to concentrate on the words.

He saw himself sitting next to Thrawn’s stretcher in the medical shuttle; saw the strange markings on the ruined flesh of Thrawn’s ribs; realized he was looking at marks made by rows of needle-sharp Noghri teeth. In the present, he felt his face twist with disgust; he took a step closer to Thrawn, knowing even as he did it that it was a futile gesture. Rukh wouldn’t attack Thrawn again — and if he did, there was nothing Pellaeon could do to stop him, no matter how close he stood.

They passed through the courtyard, back into the main halls of the former Imperial Palace. It was almost always crowded inside, and today was no exception. Guards and palace workers — senators and their aides — alien dignitaries and potential allies to the New Republic — all of them milled about inside, passing each other on their way to other locations or lurking to chat in the halls.

And all of them knew who Thrawn was, just as surely as they knew who the Noghri were. Pellaeon felt a dozen different pairs of eyes shunting their way as they strolled through the crowd.

It felt like a bad idea to him, walking with Rukh. Maybe it wasn’t — it _was_ Thrawn’s idea, after all — but it still felt bad. He tried not to hunch his shoulders, keeping his posture relaxed and undefensive as he walked. He couldn’t match Thrawn’s natural confidence and regality, but he could at least look unbothered.

They circled the lower-level halls three times in what must have been a deliberate move on Thrawn’s part. Pellaeon felt like he was being dragged along for the ride, hearing nothing from his companions, seeing nothing but the stares they got. He was relieved when they came to the conference room — finally — and stopped.

He held his tongue as Rukh took his leave from them. They watched until the Noghri had vanished around the corner. Then, finally, Thrawn looked at him.

“I cut it short,” Thrawn said almost apologetically. “You were starting to show signs of strain.”

Pellaeon bit the inside of his cheek viciously.

“Come,” said Thrawn, steering Pellaeon away from the conference room with a hand on his shoulder. “You haven’t eaten.”

He led them away from the crowded lower-level halls and toward the more deserted area where their quarters were located. Pellaeon felt his temper oscillating as they walked, reaching peaks so great he couldn’t speak from rage, only to cool again almost instantly, leaving him feeling drained and melancholy instead.

By the time their quarters were in sight, his temper was gone.

“It worries them, you know,” he said quietly. “Seeing us with Rukh — you especially, of your own free will. No doubt it’s reached the delegates by now — as you intended — but I’m not sure it’ll have the effect you desired. It makes them think you’ve outsmarted them again. Like the abduction to Honoghr was somehow _your_ idea, and they just aren’t smart enough to see it.”

Thrawn was silent as they walked, his eyes far away. 

“They can’t figure out that you don’t hold grudges, you see, sir,” Pellaeon continued. “It’s an ongoing issue, and this is only going to exacerbate it. They think you’re like _them_ — that you value people who parrot your beliefs back at you and simper about how clever and morally just you are — or that you value people for amusing you, the way Han Solo amuses his wife. They don’t value competence; they value people who say the right things, regardless of what they do, so they can’t understand why you still value Rukh.”

They walked right past their quarters, neither of them making a move to turn inside. Pellaeon wasn’t hungry; his stomach had turned into a twisted, anxious knot, and he knew that Thrawn, hungry or not, probably wouldn’t eat.

The only sound he got in response to his little speech was the tap of their shoes against the polished New Republic floors. Thrawn’s eyes swept over the tapestries on the walls, all of which looked out-of-place and somehow wrong, like they’d been pulled out of storage when the Emperor was killed and put back willy-nilly, without any sort of regard for aesthetics or historical placement. Pellaeon studied them, too, trying desperately to see what Thrawn saw.

“And what do you think?” Thrawn asked eventually.

“Me?” Pellaeon repeated, nonplussed. Thrawn turned to look at him, red eyes flickering into Pellaeon’s brown ones and then down to his lips.

“Do you think I engineered it somehow?’ Thrawn asked, voice flat.

“Engineered…?”

“My abduction to Honoghr,” said Thrawn steadily. “The torture. The rape. It worked out in our favor, did it not? Do you agree with the New Republic delegates that I planned it, or perhaps predicted the abduction and allowed it to happen for the strategic benefits it provided?”

Pellaeon’s mouth went dry. He had to force his tongue to move.

“No, sir,” he said, feeling sick at the very idea. “I do not.”

Thrawn’s eyebrows twitched; his face darkened, like he didn’t like that answer or didn’t believe it was true. But it _was_ true; certainly, it had occurred to him before that it might have been a plan gone wrong. He couldn’t fathom that even Thrawn would _intentionally_ plan to be tortured and raped, but abducted? That he could imagine. Easily. There had been strategic benefits to the entire event, he couldn’t deny that — but none that outweighed the negatives. 

And he had too much faith in Thrawn to believe he would come up with such a stupid, costly, self-destructive plan. If Thrawn didn’t believe him, if he worried that much about how Pellaeon saw him, too bad — he’d have to come to accept it eventually.

They turned down another hall, approaching the conference room once again on a more circuitous path.

“You really think it’s safe, having him as a spy?” Pellaeon asked. “You think we can really trust the being who betrayed you in the middle of battle and dragged you off to his home planet for execution?”

“Why not?” Thrawn said. He seemed acquiescent to the change of subject, but Pellaeon couldn’t tell if it was relief or irritation on Thrawn’s face. “Rukh is privy to none of our military secrets, so it isn’t a matter of trust, Gilad. He gives us information; he carries nothing back to the New Republic.”

“How do you know?”

To Pellaeon’s surprise, Thrawn actually considered the question. They walked in silence for a while, Thrawn’s brows furrowed in thought.

“The only information he can give them,” he said eventually, “isn’t military or top secret in nature. He can tell them of my personal habits, my health. But by willingly consorting with the Noghri, I have stripped that information of any usefulness to the New Republic.”

Pellaeon chewed this over for a moment. “You mean they might know your personal vulnerabilities, but can’t use them against you,” he said, “because the best way to capitalize on them is to send Rukh after you, and you choose to face Rukh yourself, on a regular basis.”

Thrawn said nothing, only inclining his head.

“But you’re assuming that they would use your vulnerabilities against you in a specific way,” Pellaeon said. “Ambushing you with a Noghri task force, for instance — believing, obviously, that you would freeze at the sight of them or have some other maladaptive reaction. Correct?”

Thrawn’s eyes narrowed speculatively as he gazed at Pellaeon. “Correct,” he said.

“Fine,” said Pellaeon. “You’re right, that wouldn’t work. You're perfectly capable of facing the Noghri. But what if that’s not the only way they could use it against you?”

He waited for Thrawn to respond, but the admiral only kept walking, his hands folded behind his back.

“Such as…?” Thrawn asked.

“Well…” Pellaeon hesitated. “Well, there are plenty of different facets to it, sir. If they ambush you with a Noghri task force, that takes advantage of your fight-or-flight response. But that’s not the only vulnerability you have, nor the only one Rukh is privy to.”

“You’re speaking of mental weakness,” said Thrawn tonelessly. “Nightmares. Flashbacks.”

Pellaeon’s mouth ran dry. “Yes,” he said. “Or a tendency toward self-destruction. Some people become suicidal in the face of trauma — or if not suicidal, then reckless, or masochistic.”

They stared at each other, both thinking the same thing, neither willing to address it.

“First they must find a way to trigger such a response,” said Thrawn with a slight shrug, as if he didn’t exhibit this exact response regularly. “Until they do that — and hone it to a state of flawless precision so that it may be used in battle — this vulnerability is of no use to them.”

He waited, inviting a response, but Pellaeon only bit the inside of his cheek. He’d started off on the wrong foot, he realized — arguing the wrong thing. His basic premise was that Thrawn couldn’t consort with Rukh because the New Republic might gather information from their meetings and use it in a time of war. This had seemed like a good argument at the time — a military argument, a tactical argument.

But their fight with the New Republic was over — would be dead and buried within the week. Thrawn and Pellaeon would cease to be soldiers and start being people again. At least, until the Far Outsiders came.

And Pellaeon realized he didn’t know how to argue on that playing field at all.

He checked his chrono, pretended to notice the time. “They’ll be reconvening soon,” he said. “We should get back.”

Thrawn nodded graciously and turned, allowing Pellaeon to fall into step beside him once again. As they walked, Pellaeon couldn’t repress the suspicion that Thrawn knew exactly what he’d really wanted to argue — and exactly why he’d let the problem lie. Knowing Thrawn, he’d take advantage of that knowledge sooner or later, Pellaeon thought with a scowl. 

Perhaps he already had.


	7. Chapter 7

That night, Pellaeon was still at his desk and in his uniform when the door between his room and Thrawn’s chimed with an access request. He turned in his chair and watched as the door slid open; Thrawn, dressed in his civilian clothes, leaned in but did not enter the room itself.

“Admiral,” he said.

Pellaeon turned fully now, his stomach churning at the sound of his rank on Thrawn’s lips. He’d been ‘Gilad’ just a few short hours ago, in front of the New Republic’s most vaunted leaders, and now — alone in his room — Thrawn had reverted back to rank, something he only ever seemed to do when he was, in some shape or form, upset. 

“Sir,” Pellaeon greeted him. When Thrawn still didn’t step inside the room, he gestured for him to come closer. Still, Thrawn hesitated before finally walking inside, letting the door close behind him on its own. He stood just inside it with his hands in his pockets; the collar of his shirt showed a minuscule blue-black stain, as if he’d recently touched up the white roots of his hair.

“I wondered…” Thrawn started, then hesitated again. He scanned the room absently, avoiding Pellaeon’s eyes with a dissonant, obviously affected expression of boredom on his face.

“Yes?” Pellaeon said. He watched the column of Thrawn’s throat shift as he swallowed.

“I wondered if I might stay with you tonight,” he said casually. His eyes shifted quickly to Pellaeon’s face, then away again. His lips twitched, turning downward into something like a scowl as he waited for an answer, refusing to meet Pellaeon’s gaze.

Pellaeon glanced at the over-large bed in the corner. He thought of Rukh — how he’d sniffed Thrawn’s hand two days before and called him an ‘it’ — and Mon Mothma’s patronizing concern, and Han Solo, and the snippets of sound he’d heard from the smuggler’s datapad earlier today before he turned the corner. The guttural Noghri language had been clearly recognizable; the sound of a frenzy, of flesh ripping and terrible alien moans of glee, had been equally clear.

“Yes,” he said softly, his voice barely audible. “Of course.”

Thrawn nodded as if he’d expected nothing less — as if he had the right to ask, as if it were only natural for Pellaeon to say yes, as if it changed nothing — but he didn’t look at Pellaeon right away. For a long moment, he kept his eyes on the floor. Then, glancing first at the chrono and then at Pellaeon, he rubbed the patch of synthflesh on his jaw and indicated the bed.

“Would you mind if I…?”

“No, not at all,” said Pellaeon quickly, gesturing to the bed as well. He realized the pointlessness of this gesture and lowered his hand, glancing instead at Thrawn. He was startled that Thrawn was going to bed before two a.m., but he tried not to show it; he could see exhaustion hanging in bags beneath the Grand Admiral’s eyes. “Is that what you’re sleeping in?” he asked.

Thrawn adjusted the buttons on his cuffs. “It’s cold in here,” he said with a tense shrug.

Pellaeon said nothing, allowing Thrawn’s statement to air. After a long moment, Thrawn cut his eyes to the bed and inhaled silently, his chest expanding slowly as he breathed.

“Will you mind if I undress?” he asked. His voice was so quiet and subdued that, even if Pellaeon _weren’t_ comfortable with Thrawn undressing, he probably would have lied and said he was.

“I don’t mind,” he said honestly; he’d showered with other cadets, hadn’t he, at the Academy? He’d slept two to a bunk on his first cramped ship, before the coveted transfer he received to a cruiser as a lieutenant. “I don’t wear pajamas myself,” he said. “Just a shirt and underwear. Is that okay?”

Thrawn actually looked relieved. “Yes, of course,” he said. 

“Well, then…” With a half-shrug, Pellaeon turned away, focusing his attention back on his datapad. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Thrawn remove his outer layer of clothing and stow each item in Pellaeon’s closet. 

“Lights: five percent,” Pellaeon said. The glow from his datapad rendered everything else in the room temporarily invisible; he only knew Thrawn had slipped beneath the sheets because he heard the rustle of bedclothes. 

For forty-five minutes, Pellaeon persisted in his reading — but in reality, he was focusing on nothing but Thrawn. His mind tracked back over every detail, scarcely able to believe it had happened at all. Ever since the Noghri had abducted Thrawn — tortured him, raped him, nearly killed him — the Grand Admiral had shown little to no vulnerability around Pellaeon or anyone else. The medbay staff told Pellaeon he was alert, composed, and displayed a wry sense of humor even in the early stages of reconstructive surgery — and Thrawn had rarely shown Pellaeon anything other than those three traits since.

The closest he’d ever come to talking about it had been the day Thrawn met Rukh and fainted. The next morning, when Pellaeon questioned Thrawn about it as gently as he could, Thrawn had minimized the event as much as possible — he fainted from hunger, he claimed, and stayed asleep due to exhaustion. And when Pellaeon had shown concern (undue concern, according to Thrawn), he’d obfuscated with that wry sense of humor, distracting and exasperating Pellaeon until he let the matter drop.

And now, after more than a year of refusing to address what he’d gone through, here he was — in the middle of the former Imperial Palace, surrounded by enemies, and too afraid to sleep in his own bed. 

Eyes itching from lack of sleep, Pellaeon switched his datapad off and stood. He took a moment to stretch his aching back and shuffle the lactic acid out of his legs. Slowly, limbs aching from long, sedentary hours, he undressed, hanging his uniform next to Thrawn’s clothes. He kept his underwear and black t-shirt on; when he slipped into bed, he saw just enough of Thrawn’s body beneath the covers to know he had done the same.

Thrawn slept on his side, one arm pillowed beneath his head and the other wrapped protectively around his abdomen. His hand rested on his bony hip; from his deep, even breathing, Pellaeon guessed he was asleep — but when he lay down, Thrawn shifted slightly toward him, and a brief red glow reflected off the far wall as he opened and closed his eyes.

Pellaeon reached out, allowing the back of his hand to brush gently against Thrawn’s shoulder blade. He pretended not to smell the faint odor of alcohol on Thrawn’s breath, pretended not to know that he was drunk, that he had maybe blitzed through more than one entire bottle of liquor tonight on his own. He felt Thrawn relax at the touch and decided, just for now, that he wouldn’t pull away.

He fell asleep like that, his hand resting against Thrawn’s cool back. When he woke less than an hour later, their positions had changed; he lay on his side, with Thrawn’s back pressed against his chest, with his left arm thrown over Thrawn’s narrow waist and Thrawn’s hand wrapped loosely around his. He could tell from Thrawn’s gradually slowing breathing that he was awake, that he’d likely manipulated Pellaeon into this position himself — but the only feasible reason he would do so was for comfort — and the only reason he would wait until Pellaeon was asleep rather than simply ask was because it went against his private nature to ask for comfort. Embarrassed him, even.

And in light of that, Pellaeon couldn’t bring himself to protest, even if the position was a tad more intimate than he'd ever imagined himself being with Thrawn. He tightened his grip, felt Thrawn relax against his chest, and allowed himself to fall asleep again.


	8. Chapter 8

The smallest member of the Organa Solo clan was sitting calmly on Luke Skywalker’s lap when the conference came into session. The little boy — Darth Vader’s namesake, Pellaeon noted with contempt — watched Thrawn with wide-eyed curiosity, as if he’d never seen an alien before. Or at least, not a blue one; he seemed notably less interested in Fey’lya and the grey-skinned Noghri, Khabarakh, who stood in the corner.

Pellaeon hesitated as he took a seat, his eyes flickering to the Noghri and then to Anakin. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why the Noghri was there — but the overt excuse Organa Solo would use didn’t even begin to make up for the _real_ reason, which was simply to unsettle the Imperial delegates, perhaps to unsettle them so much as to render them useless for today. Diplomatically, it was unacceptable; in fact, it was a deliberate violation of decorum and basic ethics that justified both he and Thrawn walking out.

 _Don’t say anything,_ he told himself. _It isn’t worth the fight._

But despite this he felt his hand raising against his will, one finger pointed at the Noghri. The New Republic delegates followed his gesture with varying levels of impatience and guilty exasperation on their faces, as if they’d known he would complain, _knew a complaint was justified,_ and still had hoped he’d let it slide.

“Is this really necessary?” Pellaeon asked — rather calmly, he thought. Only then did Thrawn glance up from his datapad, eyes shifting to Khabarakh and then, contemplatively, to the toddler on Skywalker’s lap.

“Han’s not available for childcare,” said Skywalker defensively, his eyes flickering toward Khabarakh. “Somebody’s gotta watch him.”

Organa Solo didn’t even bother to respond to the question, Pellaeon noticed. 

“And the Noghri?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

Skywalker hesitated. He glanced to his sister for help, but she kept her eyes glued to the treaty. “Khabarakh is Anakin’s bodyguard,” Skywalker said. 

Pellaeon glanced around the conference table. “Who, precisely, do you expect to attack him?” he asked. Each of the delegates avoided his eyes at this question, except for Garm Bel Iblis, who seemed faintly, contemptuously amused — with Pellaeon’s outrage or with the Organa Solo’s pathetic gambit, it wasn’t clear. Beside Pellaeon, Thrawn leaned forward, glancing past his first officer and down the table at the littlest Solo.

“Hello, Anakin,” he said pleasantly enough. “It's a pleasure to meet you. I met your namesake when he was still a Jedi.”

The boy’s eyes widened slightly, and Organa Solo finally looked up, opening her mouth with wrath written plainly across her face.

“Your grandmother, too,” Thrawn added before she could say a thing. Pellaeon watched as the outrage fizzled away, replaced by puzzlement. The same expression was pasted across Skywalker’s face as he held the child closer to his chest. 

“I don’t have a grandma,” said Anakin politely, his poise rather notable for such a young child. Force-sensitive, Pellaeon supposed. God help them, it ran in the family. Thrawn smiled at the boy, and to Pellaeon’s surprise, the child smiled back. He didn’t realize Thrawn was the enemy, Pellaeon realized — he thought the blue-skinned alien across the table was just another one of his parents’ friends. Not one of their enemies, and certainly not one of their victims; he doubted the boy even realized Mommy _had_ victims yet.

“Everyone has ancestors,” Thrawn informed Anakin. “Even clones. Your grandmother may have died before you were born, but she existed at one point, and was quite well-known, too. Your grandfather and I ran a mission to rescue her once. Before he fell to the Dark Side.”

A sour expression crossed Organa Solo’s face, eating away at the puzzlement there at once. “That’s enough,” she snapped. “Luke, get him out of here.”

Clearly, Thrawn had let a family secret slip, and he didn't even pretend to be remorseful about it. Skywalker shifted in his seat but didn’t move right away. Anakin craned his neck, looking up at his uncle to see what he would do. When Skywalker eventually stood, acquiescing to his sister’s command, Anakin seemed disappointed but unsurprised. He allowed himself to be led from the room; to Pellaeon’s relief, the Noghri followed without a word. 

“Walk with me, Admiral,” said Organa Solo briskly. It took Pellaeon a moment to realize that when she said _Admiral_ rather than _Grand Admiral_ , she meant it; she was talking to him, not Thrawn. He looked to Thrawn, who kept his eyes on the datapad as if he hadn’t heard, and the other delegates, who similarly avoided his gaze. With no convenient excuse to stay, Pellaeon slowly followed Organa Solo from the room.

She walked ahead of him ten paces down the hall, only stopped when they reached the tapestry hanging on the far end. There, she turned to stare imperiously up at Pellaeon.

“You’ll take care that _he_ doesn’t speak to my son again,” she said.

Pellaeon quirked an eyebrow at her. So that was how she wished to proceed? She'd switched from filibustering the treaty to feigning a motherly defensiveness that didn't suit her very well, and wouldn't get her far with him. It occurred to him that perhaps she was using this angry attitude as a smokescreen, trying to distract him while she fished for information about the things Thrawn had let slip.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t allow your son into committee meetings, if you don’t wish for committee members to speak to him,” he said. 

Organa Solo brushed this aside as if it were nothing. “What was that nonsense about a rescue mission?” she demanded.

Pellaeon only blinked. His lips wanted to curl up into an incredulous smile, but he didn’t let them. He wasn't sure if he should be amused or insulted that she really _was_ seeking information from him. “I suggest you ask the Grand Admiral,” he said. “I’m not well-acquainted with his career pre-Endor.”

Or the five years _after_ Endor, for that matter — but Organa Solo didn’t need to know that.

“He’s never mentioned to you that he knew Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala?” she asked him, her voice cool. 

“Ah,” said Pellaeon, noting this new information and slotting it into what he remembered from the Clone Wars. “The Senator from Naboo. Now, that’s not surprising. You do resemble her.”

The look Organa Solo gave him was withering. Suddenly weary of the entire conversation, Pellaeon attempted to make amends.

“The Grand Admiral and I do not spend a great deal of time reminiscing about the past,” he said. “Although I can’t say which military he served at the time, both of us were on what you deem ‘the right side’ of the Clone Wars. We each had our entanglements with the Separatists; if the Grand Admiral says he joined a Jedi General on a rescue mission, I have no just cause to doubt him. And I am _certain_ he served with more clarity and agency than Anakin Skywalker ever did.”

And if that information startled her, perhaps she was too young to be in politics after all.

“Anakin Skywalker was _not_ Darth Vader,” Organa Solo said. Pellaeon regarded her for a long moment; he couldn’t pretend he knew precisely what the distinction meant to her, or which winding path her mind had taken to get to this obscure statement, but he could play along.

“Both men were easily manipulated,” he said calmly. “Like the Force, it seems to run in the family.” And then, before Organa Solo could respond, he added, “I don’t mean to insult _you_ , Senator. I’m speaking of your brother — so firmly convinced that everything he does, and everything _you_ do, serves the Light. Just as Anakin Skywalker was convinced his mentor’s every action served the Light, until he could no longer deny it, yet couldn’t face his own actions — and so he turned willingly to the Dark. What do you think your brother will do when he can no longer justify what the Noghri did to Thrawn?”

Organa Solo’s lip curled. “He doesn’t need to justify it,” she said. “We did what we had to to win the war.”

Pellaeon only shrugged, losing whatever little interest he’d had in the conversation. He glanced off down the hallway, where the rest of the New Republic delegates and Thrawn were discussing the terms of their surrender.

“Congratulations, then,” he said. The rest of the sentence went unspoken: _if you think this is a victory._ “But the war was against the _Empire_ , not against Thrawn,” he added.

He wouldn’t try to argue that they’d failed at killing Thrawn — there were too many ways for Organa Solo to turn that around on him, and he wasn’t ready to hear it. She stared at him, lips pinched, as he turned away and marched back to the conference room. Organa Solo followed him a moment later, her footsteps light and barely audible against the polished floors.

Pellaeon pushed the conference room door open quietly, interrupting two different conversations at once. Borsk Fey’lya and Mon Mothma, already talking in hushed voices, stopped speaking at once and eyed Pellaeon like the interloper he was. But Garm Bel Iblis took little notice of the interruption.

“It really was a brilliant move,” he said smoothly. “And before you say it was ‘simple’ — simple or not, it scarcely matters. The simplicity merely adds to the brilliance, and it _was_ brilliant, I assure you.”

“Perhaps,” said Thrawn. His arms were crossed over his chest, but not defensively — he leaned back in his chair the same way he tended to lounge on the _Chimaera’s_ bridge, regarding Bel Iblis with quiet interest. “But anyone could be trained to do it. It required only a little study of Mon Calamari art.”

“Were _you_ trained, then?” Bel Iblis asked, his lips twisting into a smile. To Pellaeon’s consternation, Thrawn met the smile in kind.

“Every warrior has individual strengths and weaknesses,” he said. “It’s a commander’s duty to nurture those strengths, correct the weaknesses, and allow his soldiers room to grow.”

“Can we _please_ get started?” Organa Solo snapped, squeezing past Pellaeon as she entered the room. She was echoing his thoughts precisely, he noted with a bitter twist of the mouth.

Bel Iblis leaned back, terminating the conversation with noticeable reluctance. Thrawn swept his hand out palm-up, as if to say, _By all means._

“Since the Jedi Academy’s neutrality has been settled,” said Mon Mothma with a telling pause before the word ‘settled,’ “today’s agenda will focus on Provision Cresh-1.”

Military alliances. Though he’d known this was next on the docket, Pellaeon couldn’t help but grimace as he called it up on his datapad. It would initiate a whole new wave of arguments, all of them circular, all pointless — and he could only hope this round would last to the end of the day and no longer. It wasn’t realistic, he knew, to hope it would be brief.

There were so many better ways he and Thrawn could be spending their time, he thought wistfully. Or at least, there were more entertaining, more stimulating ways — he’d take a high-stakes battle over this any day.

It was made worse by the fact that he could easily predict every argument the New Republic delegates put forward — not because Pellaeon was a political genius, but because Thrawn was right: they weren’t real arguments at all. The delegates were only stalling, each of them agonizing over the provisions in any way they could think of.

“The New Republic is not to enter into any alliance with a third party against the Empire,” Fey’lya said, reading from the treaty Thrawn had prepared. He glanced up, his violet eyes trained with theatrical disdain on Thrawn. “Until when, exactly?” He scoffed out a laugh and spread his hands, looking around at the other delegates as if he expected them to back his laughter. “Are we to assume this particular clause is indefinite, precluding the possibility for justice at any point in the future?”

“Yes,” said Thrawn simply, not glancing up from his datapad. 

Fey’lya, briefly thrown by this blunt answer, recovered quickly. “Even when we are all dead and our governments have warped beyond what we could now imagine?” he pressed.

“A truly functional government does not warp,” Thrawn replied, one eyebrow raised.

Pellaeon looked across the table and saw a blank-faced Mon Mothma shift in her seat and subtly touch Bel Iblis’s hand. He didn’t glance at her; her little finger touched his and something seemed to pass between them, nonverbal yet noticeable to anyone who cared to look. It was a system Pellaeon recognized because it was identical to his system with Thrawn; it was the way they shared emotions — exasperation, amusement, concern — during meetings without resorting to significant looks.

Bel Iblis and Mothma were both experienced Senators — of the Republic and of the Empire which replaced it and also of the pitiful copycat government set up in its stead. Had either of them been happy with the Senate they served during the Clone Wars? Did either of them truly believe they had escaped from that chaos now?

They wanted peace, Pellaeon thought with contempt, and even with this tiny, pared-down delegation — even working with the smallest possible group of Senators — they couldn’t bring themselves to sign the treaty. 


	9. Chapter 9

He was only halfway-listening to Borsk Fey’lya whine on about the third provision, which insisted upon an Imperial military presence at specific New Republic trade routes and commercial hubs. When Thrawn’s fingertips brushed his forearm, Pellaeon snapped to attention immediately, zeroing in on the Grand Admiral as he leaned confidentially toward Pellaeon.

Rather than whisper, Thrawn tapped Pellaeon’s comlink, calling his attention to a message waiting there. Pellaeon hit the ‘open’ button before Thrawn had entirely leaned away and saw the message was from none other than the Grand Admiral himself.

_Captain Wersk with status update: Calamari Sector. CS datafile located in quarters. All nec. information downloaded there._

Ah. So Thrawn wanted _him_ to handle it. Pellaeon stood and made his excuses immediately but by rote; his mind was already on the upcoming conference call, his lips quirking with satisfaction. There was a warm glow of satisfaction in his chest at how easily Thrawn ceded his duties as admiral to his second-in-command — even such important duties as this.

 _You have a way of anticipating my orders,_ Thrawn had told him once, and just thinking about it again made Pellaeon bite out a smile as he hurried down the halls to Thrawn’s quarters. His mind was a thousand klicks away as he scanned his code cylinder; the doors slid open and Pellaeon had already taken one step inside before he realized something was wrong. 

He froze. Across the room, buried nose-deep in Thrawn’s suitcase, Rukh froze, too. They looked at each other silently; Pellaeon’s eyes shifted to the items strewn over Thrawn’s bed and the carpeted floor. He saw an undershirt crumpled on the bedspread; a uniform tunic tossed over the chair; a pair of black boxers unfolded in Rukh’s hands.

Maintaining eye contact with Pellaeon, Rukh lifted the boxers to his nose, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. He didn’t move as Pellaeon stormed across the room to him; he didn’t even struggle when Pellaeon snatched the boxers from his hand.

“Get out,” Pellaeon hissed. He could feel his hands curling into fists, his shoulders shaking from the effort not to strike. Rukh stared up at him, his alien face stoic and unreadable, his eyes half-lidded.

“It is a token,” he said, voice gravelly and solemn. Pellaeon’s fist clenched convulsively around the boxers; the silky material bunched in his hand. 

“Get out,” he said again, even lower this time.

He thought Rukh might argue with him; instead, the Noghri stared up at him placidly a moment longer and then turned to go. At the door, he paused; it slid open behind him as he turned and faced Pellaeon once more. 

“I have what I came for,” he said. He held his hands out, revealing a single black sock. Pellaeon felt his face contort with rage, but even as he moved toward Rukh, the Noghri disappeared — fleeing so quickly out the door that Pellaeon couldn’t even say for sure which way he went. 

He leaned out the doorway anyway, checking uselessly for any sign of Rukh. He was still trembling with a futile burst of adrenaline; as he walked back to the bed, knees watery, he opened his hand and stared down at the boxers Rukh had stolen. They were laundered and pressed, he realized — or had been pressed, before he crushed them in his hand — and even Rukh would smell nothing on them but detergent.

They’d been a decoy, then — a method Rukh used to distract Pellaeon while he stole Thrawn’s more recently-worn sock.

“Little shit,” Pellaeon muttered. He smoothed the boxers out and folded them, tossing them back into the suitcase. Stooping, he gathered the rest of the clothing off the floor — and the bed, and the chair — and reorganized it more or less the way he thought Thrawn wanted it. He’d still notice his suitcase had been tampered with, undeniably; Pellaeon would have to tell him the truth.

Later.

For now, he grabbed the Calamari Sector datafile, decrypted it, and absorbed every bit of information he could. He felt his rage draining away as the seconds ticked by; the color cooled in his face, eventually bringing him back down to his regular skin tone. When he inhaled and held his breath for a moment, he found himself feeling cooler — more centered — more calm.

He had a meeting to attend, after all.

An _important_ meeting, this time.

* * *

Thrawn entered his quarters and inclined his head toward Pellaeon in greeting, not saying a word. 

“Wersk is handling it well,” Pellaeon informed him, anticipating Thrawn’s first question. “The first conflict went more or less as we discussed last week; a little better, in fact. The Dac fighters were more scrambled by the Uyssk maneuver than we hoped for; they caved in faster, and Wersk accelerated things appropriately; he moved on to the Ywerta-Eight and skipped the Pqiuran entirely.”

Thrawn absorbed this all silently, with his back to the door. He didn’t blink at the impromptu code names Pellaeon had devised specifically for their talks here; he seemed to decipher them immediately and move onto other things, no doubt thinking several steps ahead.

“It won’t be long until Ackbar joins the negotiations, then,” he said.

Pellaeon shrugged, his shoulders tense. With the status report out of the way, his mind was straying back to what he’d caught Rukh doing earlier today. 

“I hope you understand that Ackbar won’t capitulate,” he said, forcing it out of his thoughts. “On anything.”

Thrawn’s lips twitched. “Of course not. But that’s expected — let’s not discuss it now.”

Translation: let’s not discuss it here. Pellaeon hesitated, remembering Thrawn’s insistence that their rooms were not bugged, and decided this was probably still true — but it was one thing to talk about emotional affairs in the New Republic’s headquarters and another thing entirely to discuss strategy. He nodded, darkened his datapad, and stood, ceding the desk and its chair to Thrawn.

Thrawn didn’t take it. He stayed where he was, with his back against the door, and raised an eyebrow at Pellaeon.

“You have something else to say,” he prompted.

Pellaeon chewed his lip. Slowly, Thrawn’s face was wiped blank.

“Something disturbed you...” he said, still with that leading tone. 

Pellaeon sighed — a long, loud exhale that seemed to amuse Thrawn more than concern him. He gestured for Pellaeon to speak with a laconic roll of his wrist.

“It’s Rukh,” Pellaeon said. He had to fight his facial features to keep them from assembling into something less neutral than his already-aggrieved expression. “He was in here today when I came to fetch the datafile. Here. In your quarters.”

They stared at each other, neither speaking as Pellaeon waited for this to sink in. Belatedly, he realized it _had_ sunk in, and that this blank stone wall of a face was all the reaction he was going to get until he said more.

“He was…” Pellaeon gestured toward the bed, his cheeks burning. “He had your suitcase open. He’d gone through all your clothes. He was … smelling them. Rifling through them. Looking for something you’d worn recently, I think, but I imagine almost all of it was recently washed. He…”

He thought of Rukh, his nose pressed deep into the V of Thrawn’s boxers, and shook his head.

“He took one of your socks,” he said instead. 

“I know,” said Thrawn. His voice was flat; he seemed utterly unaffected.

Pellaeon blinked, his mouth hanging open in surprise. “You _know?_ ” he managed eventually.

Thrawn gave him an almost affectionately amused look. “The suitcase is still open, Gilad. You think I wouldn’t notice it’s been rifled through? That one of my socks is missing?” he asked.

Oh, of course, Pellaeon thought sourly. He should have known Thrawn could catalogue the contents of an open suitcase from across the room. He should have known Thrawn was the only person in the universe who didn’t occasionally misplace his socks. And of course Thrawn noticed a missing sock and immediately thought, ‘Ah, the Noghri double agent who tried to kill me at Bilbringi must have taken it.’ Of course.

“You _know_ ,” he said again, this time fully digesting the words. “And it doesn’t bother you?”

For a long moment, Thrawn didn’t answer. He moved away from the closed door — finally — and approached the suitcase, delicately tilting back the lid to get a better look. His eyes went right to the pair of boxers folded in the corner, Pellaeon noticed with a guilty twist in his stomach. Thrawn eyed them critically for a moment — just long enough for Pellaeon to see — and then examined the rest of the clothes briefly. He removed the now-single sock and closed the suitcase with a soft click of the latch.

“Rukh enjoys his tokens,” Thrawn said reasonably. “It isn’t entirely sexual. I believe my scent inspires an almost religious ecstasy in him.”

 _Not entirely sexual,_ he said. _Religious ecstasy._ Well, problem solved, then. Nothing wrong with a little religious ecstasy among friends. Pellaeon fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“It isn’t right, sir,” he said. “You're entitled to privacy just like everyone else, _especially_ from him. Breaking into your room — sorting through your clothes without your permission — _him_ of all people—”

He was horribly cognizant of the fact that he wasn’t forming full sentences, but being cognizant of the issue didn’t help him fix it. He could feel his face heating again — from anger this time rather than embarrassment — and this just made him stumble over his words even more.

“Peace, Gilad,” said Thrawn. He laid one cool hand over Pellaeon’s just long enough to make Pellaeon’s brain freeze. Then he moved it away, leaving his suitcase on the bed and retreating to his desk. “Rukh is a creature of many idiosyncrasies. It’s no great burden to grant him this one small thing.”

Pellaeon’s chest rose and fell deeply, but he forced himself to breathe through his nose — it slowed his lungs down and calmed him a little before he spoke.

“Speak freely, sir,” he said.

Thrawn glanced over his shoulder at Pellaeon, one eyebrow raised in amusement. Pellaeon didn’t let this distract him; he spoke as earnestly as he could, keeping his voice gentle and low.

“It truly doesn’t bother you?” he asked.

“It’s a matter of tactics, Gilad,” Thrawn answered, matching Pellaeon’s gentle tone. “You wouldn’t ask if a Marg Sabl bothers me.”

That last sentence wasn’t a question, but Pellaeon responded to it anyway, meekly shaking his head.

“Besides,” said Thrawn, turning away again, “it’s not the worst invasion of my privacy here. There’s also the camera.” He gestured vaguely around the room as he said it. “I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Ah, the camera! Finally, Pellaeon felt like his feet were back on even ground. He approached Thrawn’s bed and sat down, swinging his feet over the side. Triumphant, he cozied up near the small camera set into the headboard — almost invisible, and certain not to be noticed by most men. After all, nobody ever took a good long look at his headboard. 

He sat in the camera’s blind spot and indicated it to Thrawn. He watched, smiling, as Thrawn’s eyes flicked blankly toward the camera and then back to him.

“That’s _Rukh’s_ camera,” Thrawn told him.

His tone said more than his words. Pellaeon’s smile slid off his face like hyperspace fuel floated from a broken tank. “I sense that what you meant to imply was ‘that’s _just_ Rukh’s camera,’” he said, sitting up straighter. “Please tell me that isn’t the case. Why does _Rukh_ have a camera in your room?”

Thrawn shrugged elegantly. “I see no harm in it. He doesn’t share what he sees, and he doesn’t record.”

Pellaeon craned his neck to look sideways at the camera, aghast. “You've _known_ about this?” he asked. “Why didn’t you take it out?”

“And encourage him to place another one somewhere else?” Thrawn asked, one eyebrow raised. “Surely it’s better to work with the cameras we _know_ are here rather than invite new, better-hidden ones.”

Pellaeon’s lips moved, but no sound came out. His brain tracked back over Thrawn’s words and one in particular leaped out at him. “Cameras, plural?” he asked. “Who else has cameras here?”

Thrawn stared at him silently, as if trying to gauge Pellaeon’s tone — as if he couldn’t be sure the question was serious. Offended, Pellaeon met his eyes with a scowl, and finally Thrawn relented.

“Bel Iblis and Mon Mothma both planted devices,” he said, not bothering to point those devices out. “I made a show of discovering Mothma’s; she replaced it summarily, and I have endeavored not to notice it since. Bel Iblis is more of an egotist, perhaps rightfully so; his high opinion of himself means he doesn’t find it suspicious that his camera has gone undiscovered. Fey’lya’s device, meanwhile, was so obvious I couldn’t pretend to ignore it; I removed it at once and he has not replaced it since. Skywalker doesn’t know the others have planted cameras. Organa Solo has pointedly abstained.”

Pellaeon raised an eyebrow at that. “Too noble to record the enemy?” he asked.

Thrawn matched his expression. “Certainly, they’ve placed cameras in less honorable situations without qualms,” he agreed, avoiding Pellaeon’s eyes. “Perhaps that is precisely why they have abstained now.”

They stared at each other for a moment, utterly silent — or rather, Pellaeon stared at Thrawn and Thrawn stared down at the single sock in his hand, his eyes unfocused and far away. When he finally noticed Pellaeon staring at him, his gaze seemed to flicker and he glanced up with a smile.

“You look well today,” he said.

Pellaeon studied Thrawn’s face — the easy, disarming smile, the laugh lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes. There wasn’t a trace of pain on his face.

“I look well?” Pellaeon repeated.

“Handsome,” said Thrawn.

Jarred, Pellaeon looked away. He felt his cheeks heating under Thrawn’s gaze; anger flared unwelcome and irrational in his chest. 

“You’re deflecting,” he said.

Thrawn didn’t respond. Out of the corner of his eye, Pellaeon could see him standing there, his posture relaxed, his head cocked in thoughtful study of his second-in-command. Feeling like a bug under glass, Pellaeon twitched his shoulders and turned fully away, facing the door between their rooms rather than look at Thrawn.

When he felt Thrawn’s fingers brush his wrist — skin dry and cool — he walked straight through that door and closed it without saying another word.


	10. Chapter 10

It was three hours past midnight when Thrawn pushed open the doors to a balcony on a mid-level floor of the former Imperial Palace. He paused in the doorway, buttoning his coat, and pretended not to notice the cold eyes of Leia Organa-Solo glaring at him from the balcony’s edge.

“ _You’re_ up late,” she said, her voice wary — defensive, Thrawn thought. Then, audibly softening, she added, “Bet you didn’t expect to find me here.”

A cloud of smoke hovered around her face, emanating from a hand-rolled cigarra clutched between her fingers. Thrawn eyed it curiously, made some mental calculations as quickly as he could, and approached the balcony’s rail.

“I didn’t give much thought to your whereabouts,” he told her. “And it isn’t particularly late for me. I need less sleep than humans.”

She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, saying nothing. Then, in a silent and surprising display of trust — or something like it — she turned away, allowing Thrawn to stand beside her at the railing. They looked out over the city, both of them quiet. Leia’s posture was relaxed — or perhaps more accurately, it was weary — and showed none of her defensiveness from a moment before.

“Your admiral is sleeping, then?” she asked.

“Presumably,” said Thrawn. _Your admiral,_ he noted.

She said nothing, waiting for him to ask about her husband in turn, as if the two were comparable. Perhaps they were, but he said nothing. It seemed unlikely to him that she and Solo were sleeping together just now. Instead, he wrapped long, cold fingers around the railing and leaned forward perhaps a little farther than was safe, peering over the edge. Leia watched him, her face unreadable.

“He hates me,” she said when Thrawn leaned back again. He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised, and she handed him her hand-rolled cigarra. He examined it a moment before placing it between his lips; he could taste her on the paper, the flavor faint but unmistakably there. 

“Pellaeon,” she clarified. “Or Gilad, as you call him. He hates me fiercely.”

“He does,” Thrawn acknowledged, tendrils of smoke escaping his mouth. Solo had similar wealths of hostility for him, he'd noticed. He breathed in the rest of the smoke, closing his eyes and holding it in his lungs. Blindly, he passed the cigarra back to Leia.

“But you don’t?” she asked. "You harbor no ill will?"

Thrawn said nothing. By the time he exhaled, opening his eyes again, Leia had looked away. She stared pensively out over the balcony, the cigarra held absently in her hand. 

“You don’t have to answer,” she said. “I know you don’t.”

Silently, Thrawn shifted a little closer to her, leaning with his arms folded on the rail. The wind blew Leia’s smoke into his face and he let his eyes slide closed as he breathed it in. 

“This is Alderaanian tabac, isn’t it?” he said. Leia’s hand touched his so lightly he could barely feel it. He took the cigarra from her obediently, tapping ash over the balcony’s edge.

“Of a sort,” Leia said. “If you can call it Alderaanian when it’s not grown on Alderaanian soil.”

He looked down at the lit end of the cigarra, glowing red in the night. 

“I can get you more of them,” Leia offered. “While you’re here.”

He put the cigarra between his lips and pulled on it deeply. It wasn’t what he _wanted_ to do with it — not exactly — but it would do. His hands felt numb, disconnected from the rest of his body — the same way they’d felt when they were tied so tightly by the Noghri that first his blood seemed to burn beneath his skin, and then later, he couldn’t feel anything at all. If he took this cigarra — if he pressed the lit end of it against the back of his hand — or better still, against the unfeeling scar tissue encircling his wrists — then, at least, he would know the hands were his own.

Passing the cigarra back to Leia, he mulled over her words and said, “As an apology?”

“Do you need an apology?” Leia replied.

Thrawn lost some of his smoke to a hollow huff of dry laughter. He shook his head. 

“I didn’t think so.” Leia turned her head away, staring out over the silent city. Lights twinkled as far as either of them could see — like snow, Thrawn thought, but not the same at all. It was inorganic, artificial beauty, each light stripped of uniqueness and matched by a twin somewhere to the south or north of it. Not like snow in the moonlight, or a field of ice beneath the sunrise. He glanced up at the skyline and saw ship lights blinking up above, but no stars. They thought this planet was beautiful; he’d seen more beauty on Honoghr.

“Luke thinks we should have issued a formal apology,” Leia said, her arm brushing his. “A public one, even. I told him no; not because it would affect our reputations — and not because it would affect yours, or even because you would rather we keep it quiet, which I’m sure you would. I told him no because if our situations were reversed, you would have done the same to us. Wouldn’t you?”

Thrawn hummed. “Possibly,” he said. “Once all better options were exhausted — but targeted assassinations are only rarely a productive method of warfare. Few enemies worth defeating can be destroyed simply by removing their heads.” 

“I understand,” said Leia. “And I suppose it wouldn’t have worked with us, either, but there were no better options. There were no other options at all.”

He kept his opinion on that to himself, rubbing the deep, aching ligature marks on his wrists. Even now, the New Republic delegates had options — just not options they were willing to consider. For the time being, perhaps, that was for the best.

“You tried to kidnap my children,” Leia reminded him. Her voice turned flinty in the middle of the sentence — then brittle — then ended soft again. Had she ever wanted children? he wondered. Could anyone with Darth Vader's blood in their veins bring a child into the galaxy without a hint of guilt and resentment toward whoever persuaded her? Perhaps she worried a turn toward darkness was inevitable in her bloodline; perhaps she saw her actions at Bilbringi as proof.

She passed the cigarra back to him, and this time, after he had transferred it to his lips, she took his cold hand in hers and squeezed. She was warm — pleasantly so, Thrawn thought. He held still, but didn’t pull away.

“I did try to kidnap them,” he said, glancing down at their joined hands. “I make no excuses for it. It was the Empire’s best option at the time, just as turning the Noghri against me was yours. Both gambits were unsuccessful, so it hardly matters now.”

“Except you won, and we’ve lost,” Leia said. Her eyes cut sideways, raking up and down Thrawn’s body clinically. “Not that you could tell from the side effects.” 

He held his breath, trapping the smoke in his lungs until long after it started to burn. 

“Look at you,” Leia said, her voice detached. She ran her thumb over Thrawn’s knuckles almost comfortingly; at the same time, her lip curled in what he could only assume was contempt. “This isn’t because of what the Noghri did with you at Honoghr, Admiral. This is because of the _treaty_. You don’t know what to do with yourself without a war.”

He looked at her, still not exhaling, and she met his eyes with a wavering smile.

“I ought to know, right?” she said. She sighed, plucking the cigarra from his lips. “I think your admiral knows it, too. Ask him what he plans to do in retirement. He’ll have no idea what to say.”

Thrawn watched her, but his eyes were unfocused and far away. He was looking beyond her, cataloging the shadows of the balcony, absently and instinctively searching for solid shapes within them. For Rukh. When Leia’s eyes flickered, meeting his own, he turned away and dropped her hand.

“They call you a warlord,” Leia said. “They say you’re the greatest strategic mind in the galaxy — and from what I can tell, that’s true. But what use is a warlord without a war?”

Thrawn craned his neck slightly, watching a swarm of personal transports fly by overhead. Anyone looking down might see the Empire’s sole Grand Admiral sharing a cigarra with the New Republic’s most famous Senator. He declined the cigarra when she tried to pass it to him again.

“There’s always a war,” he said.


	11. Chapter 11

Their midday recess came closer to five p.m. than noon, at which point Pellaeon had gone past the point of hunger and instead felt like his stomach was gnawing on his other organs, giving him a faint nauseated feeling more than anything else. He accompanied Thrawn to his quarters, where he fully intended to decompress before the conference reconvened at seven. The stormtroopers were mostly gone, venturing out into the city with a New Republic credit stick and without their armor in order to bring back food.

Thrawn took a seat at his desk, looking even more exhausted than Pellaeon felt. He ran his hands through his hair and bowed his head; there were deep circles under his eyes.

“It can’t last forever, sir,” said Pellaeon, loosening his uniform collar for the moment. “At least we can comfort ourselves with that. No war goes on interminably — not really. And someday we’ll both be retired, planetside somewhere, and you’ll have no worries to focus on except your art.”

He imagined it briefly, but he was only able to paint the picture in his head the same way a child might draw a beast it’s heard of but never seen. The lines he sketched were clumsy, the colors vivid but mutable, the whole scene feeling somehow disconnected from himself even as he dreamed it up.

He saw surrealistic images of a country home floating in his head and found he couldn’t visualize any of the details — and certainly couldn’t picture either Thrawn or himself inside. Would he be happy in a country home? Would either of them? He hadn’t lived planetside in so long it was impossible to say whether he’d be happiest in the city — or by the sea — or in the fields.

“What will you do then?” Thrawn asked without glancing Pellaeon’s way, his voice strangely flat. He rested both hands along his jawline, curled loosely into fists; his eyes were focused on the datapad that sat before him on the desk.

“Anything,” said Pellaeon, because he couldn’t think of a single damn thing that might hold his interest. “Anything I want. That’s what retirement is for.”

Thrawn said nothing; he didn’t even blink.

“Well, what would you do?” Pellaeon asked.

Thrawn squeezed his eyes shut. The position of his hands kept Pellaeon from seeing anything below the sweep of his cheekbones, which stood out more and more starkly with every passing day. Gradually, Thrawn uncurled his fists, bowing his head forward and spreading his fingers out to cover his ears, as if to block the question out entirely.

And only then did Pellaeon hear the soft hitch of Thrawn’s breath. At first, for one blissful albeit confusing moment, he thought Thrawn was laughing. Then he took another look at Thrawn’s tightly-closed eyes and realized the truth.

His heart thudded in his chest. With hands shaking from a surge of nerves and adrenaline, Pellaeon tentatively touched Thrawn’s shoulder. 

“Sir,” he said softly, sounding just as confused and embarrassed as he felt. “I didn’t mean — I, well — what did I say? What’s wrong?”

Thrawn simply shook his head, moving his hands up to cover his eyes instead of his ears. His lips were trembling but pressed firmly together, preventing even the slightest sound from escaping. Pellaeon stepped closer to the desk, moving one hand to Thrawn’s back and the other to his upper arm. 

Was it something he’d said? More likely, the Grand Admiral had been on edge since they’d arrived, and only now was he starting to crack. Pellaeon could feel Thrawn’s sharp shoulder blades and spine beneath his uniform — and the shaky, shallow expansion of his lungs he tried to modulate his breathing. Facing Rukh again, sparring verbally every single day with Organa Solo and the rest of the Senators who had approved his abduction — and not eating on top of that, and barely sleeping… all of it had to inevitably take its toll.

But somehow, Pellaeon realized, he hadn’t really thought it would. He’d expected Thrawn to keep going indefinitely, unbothered and composed no matter what. He watched as Thrawn clutched his head and bared his teeth, the first audible sob hissing out of him. 

Reflexively, Pellaeon pulled Thrawn closer to him, whispering, “Shhh,” not because he wanted Thrawn to stop or to silence himself, but because he simply didn’t know what else to say. Thrawn leaned into him, reluctant and stiff at first but almost immediately going limp, burying his face in Pellaeon’s chest. His hands came up to clutch weakly at the cloth around Pellaeon’s waist. 

“It’s okay,” Pellaeon murmured, feeling incompetent and useless. He placed a hand on the back of Thrawn’s head, holding him close, and tried not to think about the stormtroopers arriving any moment now to deliver their evening meal. His fingers tangled in Thrawn’s blue-black hair. “I’ve got you. You’re alright.”

He could feel Thrawn’s trembling and rapid, shaky breaths, but there was no noise as he cried. That first, barely audible sob was the last thing Pellaeon heard, and after that everything was thoroughly suppressed. The tears manifested themselves in Thrawn’s posture; he clung to Pellaeon desperately and shook with the effort of containing every sound. 

Pellaeon couldn’t be sure how long it lasted — long enough, at least, for Thrawn’s datapad to go dark, removing the only source of time Pellaeon had, other than his chrono, which was currently hidden under Thrawn’s shaking arm. 

Gradually, the tremors faded, replaced by a weary type of bonelessness and the occasional subtle shiver. The raggedness of Thrawn’s breathing evened out, but he didn’t pull away. 

And neither did Pellaeon. He kept his hand in Thrawn’s hair, combing soothingly through it — soothing himself or Thrawn, he didn’t know. Only when his back started to ache for standing still for so long did Pellaeon shift position. He reached out and reactivated Thrawn’s datapad, noting with little surprise that nearly twenty minutes had elapsed while Thrawn cried.

Carefully, he brushed the hair back from Thrawn’s forehead, trying to coerce him into lifting his head. 

“Are you alright now?” he asked. He kept his hand on Thrawn’s forehead until Thrawn pulled back a little, his hooded eyes looking anywhere but at Pellaeon. He didn’t answer the question; he simply extricated himself from Pellaeon’s embrace and settled back in his chair. Without a word, Thrawn turned back to his datapad, grasping it with both hands the same way he’d clutched at Pellaeon’s waist. His face was blank; if not for the raw cast to his features, Pellaeon wouldn’t have been able to tell anything had happened at all.

“I apologize, Admiral,” Thrawn said, his voice barely audible but composed. _Admiral_ again, Pellaeon noted. “I didn’t intend to command your time.”

Pellaeon processed this slowly, recognizing it as a dismissal — not that he had any intention of being dismissed. “You don’t have to attend the evening session, you know,” he said. “I could go in your stead. We can easily claim you have pressing business to attend to via comm.”

Without glancing up at him, Thrawn gave a single, subtle shake of his head. Pellaeon nodded and then did exactly what Thrawn didn’t want him to do — he grabbed the spare chair away from its spot against the wall and took a seat.

“Let’s talk,” he said.

Thrawn looked at him, stricken. When Pellaeon pulled his chair closer to the desk, Thrawn sat up straight and moved his own a little farther away. 

“I’m fine,” he said, voice hoarse.

Pellaeon took a deep breath and let it out slowly, rather than respond directly to this claim. He searched around for something to say — or rather, for the right thing to ask — but everything seemed equally helpful or harmful. 

“Are you feeling better?” he asked eventually, figuring it was a good start.

Thrawn’s mouth twisted. He turned away from Pellaeon with a jagged shrug. Then, gingerly, he passed a hand over his eyes, wiping away the drying evidence of tears. 

“Just a stress reaction, Admiral,” he said while his eyes were covered.

Pellaeon had no doubt it _was_ some sort of stress reaction, but then again, weren’t _all_ tears a reaction to stress? 

“You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to,” he said. Thrawn rubbed aggressively at his eyes, pretending he hadn’t heard. “But I’d like to stay with you until you’re ready to leave,” Pellaeon added, trying not to sound as hesitant as he felt. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes. And don’t keep calling me Admiral. Please. Don’t keep switching back and forth like that. It’s ‘Admiral’ or it’s ‘Gilad,’ but it can’t be both.”

Thrawn’s cheeks reddened inexplicably at this command, but he nodded his acquiescence. Pellaeon watched him carefully, looking for any sign that Thrawn might be ready to speak, but he saw nothing.

So he took the initiative again.

“We slept together last night,” he reminded Thrawn gently. “Did that help at all?”

Looking slightly more composed, Thrawn took a shallow breath and nodded. He kept his eyes on his datapad.

“Then…” Pellaeon scanned Thrawn’s face, but saw no hints there as to what to do or say. “Then would you like to share a bed again tonight?”

Once more, Thrawn wiped his eyes. Pellaeon couldn’t tell if he was brushing away old residue or a more subtle wave of fresh tears. With his hand still covering his eyes, Thrawn said, “I don’t want to force you.”

“You aren’t forcing me,” Pellaeon responded. “You _couldn’t_ force me. We’re the same rank now, remember? And I’m the one who suggested it, thank you very much.”

After a long moment, Thrawn nodded.

“Fine, then,” he said. His voice was so quiet that Pellaeon couldn’t tell if the tears were truly over or not.

“So … my bed or yours?” Pellaeon asked.

The response was almost inaudible. “Yours.” Then, louder, “But not now.”

“Of course,” said Pellaeon. Glancing at the clock, he felt a little alarmed that Thrawn — a notorious workaholic — even felt he needed to specify that they wouldn’t go to sleep at half past six, with a New Republic treaty meeting on the agenda for seven. “Will it help to eat something, do you think?”

Thrawn gave a twitchy shrug, eyes glued to the datapad. With trembling fingers, he called up the portion of the treaty they’d been reviewing before the recess and stared at it blankly, his eyes unmoving. “We don’t have any food,” he said.

“It’s coming.” Pellaeon glanced at his chrono and then at the door to Thrawn’s quarters. It might be best for him to wait outside for the troopers, he reflected, to avoid anyone catching sight of Thrawn. He stood creakily, placing one hand on Thrawn’s shoulder as he passed. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

Outside, he stood with his back against the closed door and waited, adjusting his uniform as he did so. There were no visible damp spots on his chest or shoulder where Thrawn had been crying — a sure sign that he’d been taking too much absorbic, and probably not drinking extra water to make up for it. He fixed his collar and smoothed out the wrinkles in his waist, and by the time he looked up again, two of the stormtroopers were walking toward him with to-go bags in their hands. 

He thanked them and dismissed them all in one breath, waiting to open the door until both of them had turned away. Inside, he found Thrawn emerging from the refresher with his face freshly scrubbed and his features as cold and composed as ever.

Despite this, Pellaeon realized with a sinking heart, it was patently obvious Thrawn had been crying. There was still something raw about his face and his eyes were noticeably swollen; they’d be hard-pressed to hide it from the New Republic delegates.

Thrawn’s eyes shifted briefly to Pellaeon as he entered the room, then down to the bags of food and away again. He re-seated himself at the desk and called up the treaty once more, this time with steady hands. Pellaeon approached slowly; he got the impression there was something Thrawn wanted to say, but whatever it was, he was clearly hesitant to put it into words. In the ensuing silence, Pellaeon pulled one plastic container after the next out of the bag and stacked them on Thrawn’s desk, searching the bottom of the bag for disposable utensils.

“What is it?” Thrawn asked, giving the food a glance that managed to be curious yet disinterested at the same time.

“Crutian,” Pellaeon responded. He peeled one container open and peeked at the curried meat inside; the thick, tangy scent of Crutian spices wafted from the bowl. “When I was a young man stationed near here, I took every chance I could to visit Ka Themh Crutian — I’d take leave on weekends sometimes just to make sure I could go there for dinner. It’s still in operation not far from here.”

Thrawn picked up one of the containers and for a moment, Pellaeon’s heart leapt, but all Thrawn did was turn it over in his hands, examining the traditional Crutian artwork printed on the side. He curled his fingers around the box and simply held it there in front of him, his eyes hooded, the warmth from the food inside no doubt soaking into his cold hands. 

“They’re a long-lived species,” Thrawn murmured, tracing the artwork with his thumb.

Pellaeon picked through the containers, leveling a piece of heavily-spiced ghemhleaf into his mouth. “Yes,” he said. “Same ownership as when I was an ensign, in fact.”

Thrawn turned to him slightly at that, raising an eyebrow as Pellaeon chewed. “Has the recipe changed?”

“Not one bit,” Pellaeon said, letting the ghemhleaf rest on his tongue. In truth, he couldn’t remember whether it tasted the same, but it tasted good, and that was all that mattered to him. He tried not to act _too_ wanton at the still-familiar flavor, keeping his eyes open and refusing to moan. He hadn’t been able to visit Coruscant — much less the tiny nation of Crutia, much less this particular Crutian restaurant — since before the Empire fell. “Still delicious,” he said, finally swallowing the ghemhleaf.

Thrawn watched him as he unlatched his canteen and swigged nearly half of it, the Crutian spices burning his lips and making his tongue tingle even from such a tiny bite.

“It causes you discomfort?” Thrawn asked.

“It’s spicy,” Pellaeon said when he’d swallowed the water. “Very spicy.”

Thrawn cast him an inscrutable look. “Will you finish it in time to rejoin the conference?”

As if Pellaeon would let fresh Crutian food go to waste. “I can always take it with me,” he shrugged, spearing a slice of seared meat from the curry. He tried very hard to sound casual and uncaring as he put his next thought into words. “Are you going to have any? It’s your lunch, too.”

At the word ‘lunch,’ Thrawn’s eyes shifted pointedly to the chronometer on his datapad, which read 1837. He looked down at the container in his hands.

“You ply me with the blandest foods at breakfast,” he said, sounding amused, “and then you bring me this for supper?”

Mouth full, Pellaeon could only shrug. Obviously, bland foods weren’t working — why shouldn’t he try the opposite next? He pointed his fork at the container in Thrawn’s hands, silently compelling him to eat. Thrawn maintained eye contact a moment longer before setting the box down. 

“I’m not hungry,” he said. He folded his hands and rested his chin on top of them — the same posture from earlier, Pellaeon noted warily, when he’d talked about retirement and Thrawn started to cry. He scanned Thrawn’s face for signs of a repeat performance, but saw only weariness and a vague hint of nausea there. 

“Did you take absorbic?” he asked.

Distractedly, Thrawn shook his head. Pellaeon was so surprised by this answer that he almost dropped the food off his fork as he lifted it to his mouth — and even though he wasn’t looking Pellaeon’s way, Thrawn must have noticed, because he said, “I was under the impression you didn’t want me to.”

Pellaeon froze for half a second before taking another bite of curried vegetables. “Well, that’s true,” he said, a little flummoxed. “ _I_ was under the impression that my opinion didn’t matter. You seemed … less amiable about the subject yesterday.”

Rather than answer right away, Thrawn leaned forward and punched a code into his datapad, calling up a lengthy document saved to his file card. He turned the screen so Pellaeon could see it better, and Pellaeon noted the title with some surprise.

_On the Battlefield and Beyond: Long-term effects of military-grade waste absorbic._

“Ah,” said Pellaeon. “You’re telling me you _didn’t_ know these long-term effects before last night?”

He watched Thrawn’s eyebrow twitch in irritation and wasn’t surprised when the Grand Admiral flipped his datapad back around, revoking Pellaeon’s access. 

“That’s like saying you didn’t know deathsticks were bad for you, sir,” Pellaeon complained. “Or that you didn’t know cigarras were addictive. _Everyone_ knows absorbic can’t be used long-term.”

For a moment, Thrawn only sat there, his irritation plain to see. It seemed to Pellaeon like he was biting back words, perhaps evaluating the wisdom of what he truly wanted to say. 

“You need to eat,” Pellaeon said.

Thrawn glanced at him dismissively.

“ _Everyone_ needs to eat, sir,” Pellaeon said. He checked his chrono and grabbed one of the Crutian containers by the edge, sliding it across the desk and closer to Thrawn.

“I understand the sentiment of that statement,” Thrawn said, barely even looking at the container. “But it’s not entirely true. For example, there are multiple species on your home planet specifically which do not eat — at all. The Corellian Sekropia does not eat at all once it reaches the adult stage.”

“Yes,” said Pellaeon, losing his patience, “and it starves to death within the week. And it's an _insect,_ sir, not a sentient being. Every Corellian learns that in _primary_ _school_.”

Thrawn shrugged one shoulder. He didn’t meet Pellaeon’s eyes; this time, when Pellaeon spoke, he made sure his voice was gentle but firm. 

“I’m serious,” he said. “You’re going to eat, and we’re going to stay here for twenty minutes afterward to make sure it doesn’t come back up. Alright?”

Thrawn’s lips twitched with displeasure. “We’ll be late for the meeting.”

“Yes, well, we won’t miss anything,” Pellaeon said. “And it’ll last for hours, anyway. I’m sure we’ll get more than one recap during that time; ninety percent of what Fey’lya says is just regurgitating someone else’s points and arguments.”

With an almost unnoticeable roll of the eyes, Thrawn grabbed the bottom of his chair and scooted it forward. He picked up a packet of disposable eating utensils while Pellaeon slid a bowl of heavily-spiced curry his way. He opened the packet listlessly and removed a fork.

“This is going to sting coming back up,” he remarked, poking at the food. 

“Good motivation to keep it down,” Pellaeon said, pretending he didn’t feel guilty just saying it. He was comforted by Thrawn’s response — a minute, crooked smile. He was even more comforted when Thrawn actually started to eat. Gradually, Pellaeon relaxed into his chair; he joined Thrawn a moment later, picking up his fork and letting the familiar flavors dance over his tongue. 

They watched the minutes tick by with an almost malevolent satisfaction; Pellaeon enjoyed the image of the New Republic senators cluelessly waiting for him perhaps a little _too_ much, and he found it likely that Thrawn did, too. There were long pauses between each of Thrawn’s bites, but it was still more than Pellaeon had seen him eat in one sitting since Bilbringi. 

“The entire bowl,” Pellaeon reminded him when Thrawn slowed down even further less than halfway through.

“Aye, sir,” said Thrawn dryly, but at least he kept eating. A little while later — more than halfway through, but not by much — he stopped for good, setting his fork down and leaning away. Pellaeon didn’t argue with him; he’d known from the outset that the entire bowl was too much to ask, and he was pleased with the results. 

He packed up the leftovers with assiduous care, placing half the bowls in a cold-storage locker in Thrawn’s room before zipping over to his own quarters to stow the rest. In the quiet, when he was alone, he felt Thrawn leaning bonelessly against him and trembling as he cried. How could he possibly address things like this? He wasn’t even qualified to address Thrawn’s aversion to eating; all he could do was walk on eggshells around him, do and say whatever seemed least harmful, and pray it worked. 

He took a deep breath, covering his eyes until the rapid beating in his chest settled back into a normal pattern. What worked best, he knew — what Thrawn needed — was a lack of judgment. Acting concerned got him nowhere; acting like all of Thrawn’s behavior was reasonable, on the other hand, at least _sometimes_ opened doors. He checked his expression in the mirror over his dresser, confirming that his features were doing what he told them to. They weren’t; he laid his palms flat against his face and rubbed aggressively until his skin felt ultra-sensitive and his features looked more or less normal.

When he returned, Thrawn was glancing down at his comlink; a small holo of Luke Skywalker fizzed above the display.

_Is your visual display off?_ Pellaeon mouthed.

Thrawn nodded, then added aloud, “It’s on mute.”

“Ah.” Feeling somewhat silly now, Pellaeon walked up and stood next to Thrawn, peering over his shoulder at the holo. 

“—so if you’ll just let us know when you’re on your way,” Skywalker was saying. Pellaeon wrinkled his nose and Thrawn, evidently sharing this sentiment, turned the comm off.

“Do you still wish to wait twenty minutes?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Pellaeon, eyeing the pale tinge to Thrawn’s face. “I don’t think we really want to mess around with the after-effects of long-term absorbic abuse in public.”

“Rukh will be able to smell it,” Thrawn murmured, his eyes sliding closed. “That I’ve been ill.”

“ _Rukh_ is not a delegate,” said Pellaeon. “He shouldn’t be at the meeting. And what does it matter if he can smell it?” He tried to make eye contact, but Thrawn refused to look up. “I thought you trusted him.”

“I trust him not to kill me,” Thrawn said. “And I trust him not to betray military secrets. But he must feed _some_ information back to his keepers; he would make a poor double agent otherwise.”

Pellaeon looked at him doubtfully. “You think they care whether you’ve been ill?”

“I think they _know_ when I’ve been ill and when I haven’t,” Thrawn corrected. “I think they have intimate knowledge of my symptoms and psychological state. And they must be getting that information, whether they care about it or not, from Rukh. Did you hear Skywalker’s comment today?”

He gestured at his left wrist as he asked this. Pellaeon glanced down at Thrawn’s hand, nonplussed.

“No,” he said.

“I thought not. You were in conversation with Borsk Fey’lya.”

“What did he say?” Pellaeon asked, his heart thudding fast again. Thrawn moved his hand back, now rubbing absently at his throat as if it ached.

“My sleeve slipped up, away from my wrist,” Thrawn said. “Skywalker saw. He said, ‘Are those your scars from being tied up or from the…?’ before he caught himself.”

Pellaeon’s mouth fell open before he could stop it. He stared down at Thrawn’s wrist — the _correct_ wrist, not his left one — with wide eyes and a horrified expression twisting his lips.

“Rukh told them…?” he started. Then, recalibrating, he said, “Rukh _knows?_ ”

For a long moment, Thrawn didn’t answer. He kept his head bowed, his eyes closed in a grimace. Finally, very quietly, he said, “I think I _am_ going to throw up.”

He made no attempt to move to the ‘fresher, so Pellaeon scrambled to his feet, hauling a small trash receptacle off the floor and shoving it into Thrawn’s hands. He looked away, ignoring the smell of bile as Thrawn vomited almost noiselessly into the bin. 

The scars on Thrawn’s right wrist were, he knew, not _entirely_ ligature marks. It was an incident Pellaeon felt sure Thrawn would not repeat again; he’d turned himself into the medbay almost immediately afterward, before he’d lost a significant amount of blood, and submitted to bacta and stitches without complaint. His demeanor then had been simultaneously distant and subdued — calm but mortified, it seemed to Pellaeon, by what he’d almost done. 

They hadn’t talked about it since — not really. Though he couldn’t explain it, Pellaeon felt confident there wouldn’t be a second attempt, and Dr. Yegm had expressed the same sentiment at the time. Outside of the two of them — plus the medical droids — Pellaeon had assumed nobody else knew. 

He moved back a little as Thrawn sat up again, pushing the trash bin across the desk. Thrawn kept his head turned away from Pellaeon until he’d located a handkerchief and wiped his mouth. He looked back only when Pellaeon reached for the bin, attempting to empty it — Thrawn’s fingers caught him ‘round the wrist before he could.

“I’ll do it,” Thrawn whispered. His voice was raw from vomiting; Pellaeon hesitated, certain this was an argument he could win if he tried, but decided it wasn’t worth it. He stepped back, giving Thrawn room to stand; he watched as Thrawn moved the bin to the ‘fresher, closing the door as he emptied it and rinsed its plastisteel walls. 

The door stayed closed. Behind it, Pellaeon heard running water and a quiet gasp for air as Thrawn vomited again — this time, in private. He checked his chrono and then crossed to Thrawn’s pristinely-made bed, perching on the edge of the mattress. Legs crossed, foot tapping with irrepressible anxiety, he watched the minutes tick by and listened with half an ear for any telltale sounds — like a loud thump on the floor — to indicate Thrawn had fainted. 

Twice he stood, crossing silently to the ‘fresher door and pressing his ear against the cold durasteel. Each time, he could just barely make out the sound of vomiting, so he withdrew. He paced the room; he checked his chrono; he sat; he checked on Thrawn again.

He was standing in the middle of the room, aimlessly shaking the nerves out of his arms and pointedly ignoring a comlink call from Mon Mothma, when the door slid open again. Pellaeon stopped mid-stretch, his arms crossed over his chest.

“You alright?” he asked, dropping his arms.

Thrawn made a face and waved his hand at Pellaeon in a dismissive gesture. It was good to see such a lively expression, Pellaeon supposed, because Thrawn’s skin had turned an alarmingly pale shade of blue; he looked wan, washed-out — and there were dots of synthflesh on his face that were visible now when they hadn’t been an hour earlier, so well integrated with Thrawn’s natural skin that they only showed up when his complexion changed.

“Did you want to stay?” asked Pellaeon tentatively. He was hyper-aware of the time; it was blinking from the chrono on his wrist.

“Stay?” Thrawn repeated. He wrapped his arms around his ribs; his eyes slid closed.

“Yes,” Pellaeon said. He tried to stop himself from stepping forward — but the repressive effort only served to make him look more convulsive when he finally did. His hand jerked up of its own volition — a gesture so abrupt he wouldn’t have been surprised if Thrawn flinched. But Thrawn only watched, eyes hooded and face pinched, as Pellaeon touched his shoulder gently and guided him toward the bed. 

“Stay here and miss the meeting?” he asked. His lips quirked in weary amusement, like the concept was ridiculous, but he allowed himself to be guided. When the back of his knees hit the edge of his bed, he folded himself down onto it without argument and simply sat there, eyes closed, bent bonelessly over his folded arms.

For half a second, Pellaeon thought he might faint. It wouldn’t be surprising, really; this bout of vomiting had been more violent than most. It was a natural effect of taking too much absorbic — inevitably, the body became accustomed to absorbing nutrients without producing waste, and when the absorbic was suddenly taken away, it could sometimes take days for the digestive system to get itself back on track.

Thrawn didn’t faint. Instead, he reached out and hooked his fingers into the boots nearby, dragging them closer. He fumbled with them silently, struggling to slip his feet inside. His hands were still trembling, still weak. 

Pellaeon glanced at his chrono again, checking how late they were for the meeting. When he glanced back up, he faltered; Thrawn still hadn’t tied his boots. He was sitting there now with the laces clutched loosely in his hands, staring at them with his eyebrows furrowed. 

“Sir?” Pellaeon said. “What is it?”

Slowly, Thrawn sat up, letting the laces drop. He put his hands palm-down on the mattress, supporting himself with weak arms. A smile crossed his lips briefly, accompanied by a huff of laughter — and then it died.

“I can’t remember how to tie them,” he said heavily. His eyes slid closed as if he couldn’t bear to see Pellaeon’s expression. For Pellaeon, this was a distinct relief; it gave him time to process the words, to wash the surprise from his face and figure out what to do.

Best not to make a big deal about it, he told himself even as panic gnawed at the edges of his mind. It was a symptom of exhaustion and trauma, nothing else. It was temporary. He set his datapad down and approached Thrawn swiftly, kneeling before him and taking the laces in his hand.

“Watch me,” he said, but Thrawn already was. Pellaeon tied them slowly, taking care that every move was visible from Thrawn’s point of view. He crossed the laces over each other, forming a loop, and pulled one end through the hole until a knot was formed. He froze as Thrawn shifted suddenly, straightening in his seat and leaning forward to get a better look at the laces. Pellaeon glanced up questioningly, unsure whether to proceed.

“That’s a healing knot,” Thrawn commented, eyebrows raised.

Pellaeon hesitated, his fingers hovering over the laces. “It’s a what?”

“A healing knot,” Thrawn said again. “A Chiss ritual for the ill and dying. It’s …” His lips moved silently. He closed them; his mouth formed a thin line. “What do you call them here?” he asked eventually.

“A bay knot, sir,” said Pellaeon, faintly embarrassed and not sure why. “It’s the same knot they use to keep ships tied to the dock.”

Thrawn’s eyes burned into his, looking peculiarly bright against his pale skin.

“That’s how I always tie them,” Pellaeon said. “In uniform, at least. You tuck the laces in anyway, so there’s no need for bows.”

Thrawn said nothing to that. He watched as Pellaeon moved onto the next boot and tied that one more quickly, confident Thrawn didn’t need anymore instruction. When he was done, he tucked the laces into the mouths of Thrawn’s boots and stood creakily.

Thrawn leaned away, his head tipping back on his shoulders to watch Pellaeon as he stood. His eyes were hooded, giving nothing away except exhaustion.

“Thank you,” he said simply.

“It’s nothing,” said Pellaeon. He put his hands on his hips, hesitating over what to say. “I wouldn’t worry about it, sir. Bouts of confusion are … ah, fairly common, after a major trauma. Especially when you’re not feeling well, on top of things. You haven’t had much to eat, and you’ve been throwing up a great deal, so...”

Thrawn’s face had gone utterly cold. “I know,” he said. 

“Well,” said Pellaeon, suddenly flustered, “I didn’t know if—”

“I asked for your help, not for a redundant lecture,” Thrawn cut him off. He stood, adjusting his tunic with clinical distaste, and cast a beady eye at Pellaeon. “I know my symptoms far better than you do, Gilad. And _normalcy_ does not make a symptom _acceptable_. Are you ready?” 

Pellaeon stammered almost inaudibly.

“Shall we go?” Thrawn asked before Pellaeon could string more than a few words together. His voice was clipped; concern and a sense of embarrassed chastisement warred with each other inside Pellaeon.

“I-I suppose,” he said. Then, more professionally and more respectfully, “Yes, sir.”

For a long moment, Thrawn didn’t move. He stared coldly into Pellaeon’s eyes, his face hard, his posture stiff. Then his expression changed; his scowl softened; he swiveled his gaze away and stared into the corner of the room instead.

Hesitantly, he lifted a hand and brushed the pad of his thumb against Pellaeon’s wrist, against the pulse point. This time, Pellaeon let him; he shivered at the touch, but he didn’t look away. 

“Thank you, Gilad,” said Thrawn; his far-away eyes were aimed at their joined hands.

Through numb lips, Pellaeon whispered, “For what?”

He never received an answer. After a long moment, the light touch of Thrawn’s fingers against his disappeared.

He let Thrawn past him to the door and fell into step behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stole the Chiss healing knot from evilmouse’s fic [Infectious](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25320856/chapters/61391662), which is fantastic! You should definitely go read it :D


	12. Chapter 12

A hoarse shout woke him halfway through the night cycle, and before he could even comprehend what he’d heard, Pellaeon was on his feet and rushing to the door. It was only after he hit the release that he realized this was the door to Thrawn’s room, not the door to the hall — he was confused for a moment, uncertain where to turn, but as the durasteel barriers slid apart, he knew he’d instinctively made the right choice.

The howl cut off just as the doors slid into their sockets and Pellaeon stepped through. He hurried quietly to the side of Thrawn’s bed, his bare feet sinking into the carpeted floor. 

“Thrawn,” he whispered. He reached out, intending to put his hand on Thrawn’s shoulder and shake him awake, but a moment before he could do so, Thrawn’s eyes snapped open and his hand flew up to catch Pellaeon’s. They stared at each other, eyes wide, both of them breathing heavily in the dark.

“Gilad,” Thrawn said finally, his voice little more than an exhalation. 

“Yes,” said Pellaeon. The grip on his hand softened, but Thrawn didn’t pull away. Taking this as an invitation of sorts, Pellaeon lifted his other hand and pushed back the sweat-damp hair from Thrawn’s forehead. “Lights: twenty percent,” he said.

The lights flickered on quickly, and Thrawn closed his eyes in response. He sat up slowly and leaned against the headboard, letting go of Pellaeon’s hand to adjust the covers around his waist with peculiar finickiness.

“Nightmare?” Pellaeon asked, watching every slight movement with concern.

Thrawn didn’t answer for a moment. There was a strange, distracted look on his face, and Pellaeon was just about to ask him again when he nodded. 

“I heard you yelling,” Pellaeon said, relieved to get at least something of an answer. “I thought—”

He was interrupted by a knock at the door; both he and Thrawn winced, simultaneously realizing the stormtroopers must have heard, too. He looked at Thrawn, who made no move to get up, and hurried to the door. Opening it a crack, he saw a stone-faced Commander Qaebbir, who was clearly hiding a blaster in his pajama pants. 

“Everything good, sir?” he asked.

Pellaeon opened the door a fraction wider, allowing Qaebbir a glimpse at Thrawn, who seemed to sense he was being watched and turned his head deliberately away. 

“We’re fine,” Pellaeon said. “Thank you, Commander.”

Qaebbir nodded, already turning on his heel. Pellaeon shut the door immediately and turned back to find Thrawn sitting exactly where he’d left him, with his knees pulled up to his chest beneath the blankets and his arms folded on top.

Pellaeon walked back to him with a sigh; his eyeballs were itching from interrupted sleep, but he was fully awake, and he could tell from the tension in his shoulders that Thrawn was, too. He came to a stop by the side of Thrawn’s bed and, without thinking about it, started to sit down next to him. Thrawn’s hand shot out with astonishing quickness, the heel of his palm striking Pellaeon in the hip so hard that he jumped back up to his feet in pain.

“What the hell—?” he said.

“Don’t,” said Thrawn, voice hard. Pellaeon took a few steps back, absolutely flummoxed. He searched Thrawn’s face but found no clues.

“I’m … sorry,” he said, not certain he was. He looked at Thrawn harder, but before he could figure out the expression on his face, Thrawn looked away. That settled it for Pellaeon; he planted his feet, determined now not to leave the room.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Thrawn’s tone was flat; he sat with atypical stiffness in bed, keeping his arms folded on his knees but his back awkwardly straight. Pellaeon approached him warily; this time, he stayed standing and kept his hands to himself.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Thrawn snorted. He scrubbed his face and, for a long moment, didn’t seem inclined to answer. 

“I’m not leaving you like this,” Pellaeon warned him, not unkindly. “If you don’t want me sitting on your bed, fine; I’ll pull up a chair.”

Thrawn cocked his head to stare at Pellaeon, half-amused and half-weary, as he did exactly that. He scooted the chair up close enough for his knees to brush against Thrawn’s mattress.

“I don’t need you here,” Thrawn told him, matching Pellaeon’s gentle tone. “If I did, I’d tell you. I don’t even remember the dream.”

Pellaeon said nothing to that; it didn’t change his mind, and he was sure nothing he said would change Thrawn’s. He simply relaxed into his chair and raised a challenging eyebrow. For a long moment, Thrawn stared at him, his face inscrutable. Then, sighing, he looked away.

“I need to change my clothes,” he said quietly, the gentle tone gone.

Pellaeon didn’t respond immediately; he furrowed his eyebrows, uncomprehending. “You…?”

“Yes,” said Thrawn, now clearly annoyed. “So look away.”

Pellaeon hesitated just a half-second longer before scooting his chair back and turning deliberately away. Three days ago, he remembered, Thrawn had changed clothes in front of him without batting an eye — had even invited Pellaeon into the room while he did so, in fact. 

He covered his eyes and listened to the sheets rustle as Thrawn stood. There was the sound of a suitcase opening and closing, followed by the hiss of the ‘fresher door. Pellaeon let his hand slip from his eyes and turned around; Thrawn had arranged the blankets neatly over the mattress before he left.

He was still staring at the bed when the sound of the shower running snapped him out of his thoughts. He gathered the bedclothes clinically, stripping the bed until only the mattress was left. A sharp ammoniac odor, faint but unmistakable, came to his attention as he worked and he did his best to ignore it. The sonic laundry built into Thrawn’s wall was large enough for only the sheets, Pellaeon noted with regret; he folded the blanket carefully and pushed it down the laundry chute instead, where only the cleaning droids would see it. 

As the sonic laundry powered up, he returned to the mattress and swept his palm over it, checking for damp spots. There were none; a water-resistant sheen on the mattress had at least saved them from that. He checked Thrawn’s closet, where the top shelf was empty; frowning, Pellaeon glanced around the room. In his quarters, the top shelf was stuffed with extra linen, but it appeared Thrawn either hadn’t been provided with any or had gone through them already; the latter seemed unlikely, even taking tonight into account.

He crossed through the door to his room quickly, pulling extra blankets and sheets from the top shelf in his closet. By the time he had Thrawn’s mattress fitted, the shower in the ‘fresher had stopped. Pellaeon fiddled with the corners of the sheets and only looked up when the ‘fresher door opened and Thrawn stepped out.

Both of them froze. Thrawn’s hair was damp, his chest covered by a fresh undershirt from his suitcase. The soiled clothes were folded in his right hand, any telltale stains hidden from Pellaeon’s sight. He watched as Thrawn’s eyes shifted from the new coverlet on the bed to the sonic laundry, which was emitting a low electronic wail. 

“I had some extra bedclothes in my quarters,” Pellaeon explained. Then, before he could doubt himself, he rushed to add, “And thank God for that. They keep it so hot in here I sweat right through my sheets.” 

He gestured at Thrawn’s bed as he said it, implying the Grand Admiral had done the same, and pretended not to notice the surprise and tentative relief that passed over Thrawn’s face. There was a pause as Thrawn recalibrated; then he nodded once and stepped past Pellaeon to the sonic laundry, throwing his damp clothes inside. 

He turned around again slowly, leaning against the laundry as he regarded Pellaeon. His eyes flicked to the bed and then away again.

“Did you want to sleep here?” Pellaeon asked. “Or in my room?”

“Yours,” said Thrawn without hesitation. Pellaeon inclined his head, gesturing toward the door, but Thrawn didn’t move. He glanced at his suitcase across the room and bit his lip. 

Wondering if he could take an absorbic without being seen, Pellaeon realized — because _obviously_ he hadn’t taken absorbic earlier today, and look where that had got him. Casually, Pellaeon edged into Thrawn’s line of sight, distracting him from the suitcase.

“Let’s go, then,” he said softly, laying one hand on Thrawn’s arm. For a moment, he thought Thrawn might argue with him — but in the end he acquiesced, allowing Pellaeon to lead him to the other room. With the door shut firmly behind them, Pellaeon breathed a little easier; Thrawn couldn’t get to the suitcase now without waking him up. 

The lights were off in Pellaeon’s room, and he waited for his eyes to adjust rather than turn them on. Beside him, he felt Thrawn detach himself from his grasp and move toward the bed, not hindered by Pellaeon’s lack of night vision. Pellaeon joined him a moment later, slipping beneath the covers.

His bare arm brushed Thrawn’s; he adjusted the blanket, tossing more of it over to Thrawn’s side. They’d both settled down against the pillows before Pellaeon’s eyes had fully adjusted to the low light. He could hear Thrawn breathing next to him, deeply and evenly, as if he were already asleep. 

“Rukh will smell it,” Thrawn said suddenly, his voice quiet and full of dread. Pellaeon turned his head; he was able to make out Thrawn’s profile from the glow of his eyes.

“We just won’t let him near you, then,” he said. A thick silence filled the room; Thrawn stared up at the ceiling, the gears of his mind clearly turning as he thought it over.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said eventually. “It’s not new information to him. Besides, he bathed me on Honoghr — after they found out the truth, but before you came. He’s seen it all before.”

Pellaeon could think of nothing to say. He bit the inside of his cheek, his eyes suddenly burning with stress — or sleeplessness — or even tears. He let them slide closed, but there was little relief in the dark.

“It pleases him,” Thrawn said.

Without opening his eyes, Pellaeon asked, “That you have nightmares?”

“That I think of him,” Thrawn said. Pellaeon could hear him hesitating over the next words. “That I dream of us together, even if it’s unpleasant.”

His voice was even, his tone matter-of-fact; before Pellaeon could think of a response, Thrawn rolled over to face the wall, turning his back on Pellaeon entirely. In the darkness, Pellaeon reached out, letting his knuckles brush against Thrawn’s spine.

“If it happens again,” said Thrawn, his voice half-muffled by his pillow, “I’m sorry. I can’t help it anymore. That’s why I take the absorbic.”

Pellaeon’s heart ached at this. He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry, and whispered, “I know.”

He thought there would be nothing else — that both of them would drift to sleep soon, or that at least _Thrawn_ would and leave Pellaeon alone with his churning thoughts. But instead, Thrawn reached over his shoulder and grabbed Pellaeon’s hand, pulling it around his waist. Pellaeon shifted closer obediently, his stomach pressed against Thrawn’s back, his warmth seeping into Thrawn’s chilled skin.

“Most people wouldn’t have lied,” Thrawn said, his voice hardly audible. “It was kind of you.”

Ah. So he hadn’t fooled Thrawn with that night-sweats gambit after all. Pellaeon shifted uncomfortably, unsure whether to apologize or say nothing at all. He settled for squeezing Thrawn’s hand while he thought.

“It’s normal,” he said finally, inadequately. “I know you hate when I say that, but it is.”

Thrawn didn’t respond. He pulled Pellaeon’s arm tighter around him and lifted their entwined hands to his lips. In the darkness, Pellaeon couldn’t tell if Thrawn had kissed his knuckles or if they simply brushed, however briefly, against his chin. The touch was cool and light, impossible to identify, but it made Pellaeon’s heart leap just the same.

He closed his eyes and leaned forward until his nose was pressed against the back of Thrawn’s neck. He could feel Thrawn’s breathing get deeper and slower; the movement of his chest beneath Pellaeon’s hand was hypnotic, lulling him to sleep quicker than he ever could have imagined.

Before he even realized it, he’d dozed off.

* * *

He woke up slowly, like swimming up from a thick pool of mud. His head was on Thrawn’s chest — that was the first thing he noticed — and there were elbows propped on his shoulders, meaning Thrawn was awake and sitting up just enough to look at his datapad while Pellaeon slept. 

The second thing he noticed — much more urgent — was the pull in his bladder. And on the heels of that realization was something infinitely more horrifying: that he was hard, and that the tent in his underwear was pressed firmly, inescapably, against Thrawn’s hip.

He sat up so quickly that he almost knocked Thrawn’s datapad out of his hands. Pellaeon withdrew to the other side of the bed, taking a moment to adjust himself beneath the covers. Thrawn glanced at him briefly, evidently disinterested, and then looked away.

“I-I’m sorry,” Pellaeon said, color rushing to his face.

There was a short silence filled only by the tapping of Thrawn’s fingers on his keyboard. “It’s fine,” he said, and his voice was so smooth and calm that Pellaeon started to relax. “I can take care of it for you,” Thrawn added in the same casual tone.

The sense of relaxation vanished. Pellaeon blinked at Thrawn, one hand squeezing his own cock.

“What?” he said. Then, quickly coming to a reasonable conclusion, he told Thrawn, “I misheard you.”

Thrawn raised an eyebrow. He didn’t bother to repeat himself, and Pellaeon’s blush intensified. He glanced down Thrawn’s body, confirmed there was no corresponding erection waiting for him, and shuffled backwards off the bed. He retreated to the refresher quickly, without responding to the offer.

In the fresher, after relieving himself, Pellaeon tucked his softened penis back into his underwear and stared into the mirror. The face looking back at him was pale, with dark circles beneath the eyes. He washed his hands thoroughly, and then his face, and then he had to admit he was stalling.

But Thrawn … Thrawn had offered to have sex with him. It was a clear, unambiguous, undeniable offer. That was a conundrum worth stalling, wasn’t it? He glanced at the door, thought it over, and decided to brush his teeth. He counted the seconds — one minute, two minutes — and wiped the froth of toothpaste from his lips with his thumb as he worked. He let his mind drift, refusing to think about it — about the precise words used — about the psychological implications, about whether or not he could file this offer into the mental list he kept of Thrawn’s symptoms.

He spat, rinsed his mouth, and glanced reluctantly at the door. There was nothing else he could reasonably do; he left the fresher, stood with his hands clasped behind his back and the door pressing coldly against him from behind. On the bed, Thrawn glanced up from his datapad and met Pellaeon’s gaze.

Pellaeon watched those red, glowing eyes track down his body, to the front of his boxers, where his penis was unmistakably soft. Disinterested — dismissive — Thrawn looked away again.

It meant nothing, Pellaeon told himself. He dressed as quickly as he could, refusing to think about it.

It meant nothing.


	13. Chapter 13

They got separated only briefly — Mon Mothma grabbed Pellaeon’s arm as he was leaving, speaking to him politely about future conferences, political dinners, Ascension Week ceremonies and balls — and when he finally looked down the hall, Thrawn was nowhere to be seen.

He didn’t let it ruffle him. There was no need for them to be joined at the hip; Thrawn could go where he pleased — as could Pellaeon — and there was no reason to notify each other about it. 

Still, he found himself glancing both ways down each hall he entered, hoping to catch a familiar glimpse of white cloth and blue skin. A group of people stood circled around each other at the north end of the hallway, and instinctively, Pellaeon turned away from them and headed south.

He turned down an utterly deserted hallway lined with tapestries and half-hidden alcoves. It was quiet here, like he’d been abruptly cut off from the rest of Imperial Palace. Hesitantly, Pellaeon stepped forward, hyper-cognizant of the echoing sound of his footsteps on the stone floors.

He made it perhaps ten yards before he became cognizant of _another_ sound. He could identify it only as a vague susurrus at first — but as he got closer, the sounds began to separate from each other in layers. It was the susurrus of rustled clothing; the susurrus of skin on skin; the susurrus of hushed voices.

 _Familiar_ voices.

Feeling sick to his stomach, Pellaeon approached the nearest alcove and, before he could think about what he was doing, tore the tapestry away. The two people inside froze — Thrawn, with his back against the wall and his tunic half-open, actually looked startled to see him. Garm Bel Iblis merely glanced over his shoulder, tucked his penis back into his trousers, and stepped away.

“Admiral,” he said to Pellaeon. His cheeks were flushed, but not from embarrassment. A smug smile traced his lips.

Pellaeon socked him in the face. He didn’t stop to watch Bel Iblis go down; he was dimly aware as he grabbed Thrawn’s arm that Bel Iblis had fallen with his back against the stone wall and was holding his nose, groaning faintly into his hands. 

“Fix your tunic,” said Pellaeon brusquely, pulling Thrawn away. He was yanking hard enough to pull Thrawn’s arm out of socket; he knew it, but he couldn’t force himself to be more gentle, to slow down. There was a lag as Thrawn stumbled behind him, then fell into Pellaeon’s pace, but it wasn’t until they turned the corner that Pellaeon let go of his hand and actually allowed Thrawn to fix his uniform as ordered.

Silently, his face utterly blank, Thrawn tucked his shirt in and re-did the sealing strip on his tunic. He combed his hair back into place with his fingers and looked at Pellaeon as if to say, _Anything else?_ He didn’t glance over his shoulder to see if Bel Iblis was alright.

His lips looked flushed — bitten. There was a bruise forming on his pulse point.

“Come on,” said Pellaeon roughly. He dragged Thrawn farther down the hall, only releasing him when he felt sure Thrawn would follow him rather than go back. Gradually, they made their way back to the upper-level floor where their quarters were located. Thrawn wiped his lips surreptitiously, caught Pellaeon’s eye, and almost seemed to smile.

“It didn’t mean anything,” he said.

Pellaeon shook his head compulsively, unable to stop himself. He didn’t say anything. When they reached their quarters, he slapped his hand against the release on Thrawn’s door and stormed inside without waiting to be invited. 

“ _Gilad_ ,” said Thrawn, his tone chiding. Chiding! Pellaeon turned to him wide-eyed, unable to believe the _gall_.

“Where was your guard?” he demanded. “Did you send them away?”

Thrawn’s lips had been parted in preparation to speak; now he closed his mouth and turned away — probably to roll his eyes without Pellaeon seeing. With no other option — at least none that he could see — Pellaeon lifted his comlink and dialed for Commander Qaebbir. Before the call went through, Thrawn stepped closer to him and put two fingers over the ‘disconnect’ button. 

“I sent them away,” he said softly. Pellaeon stiffened, his jaw clenched.

“You could have been killed,” he hissed. Thrawn shook his head, denying this possibility matter-of-factly and out-of-hand.

“I had Rukh,” he said. “He wouldn’t have let—”

“ _Rukh?_ ” Pellaeon repeated. Thrawn urged him toward the bed wordlessly, but for a long moment, Pellaeon refused to budge. Eventually, he relented, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress. Thrawn joined him, sitting close enough for his thigh to brush Pellaeon’s.

“Rukh was watching,” Thrawn confirmed.

“Watching you,” Pellaeon repeated senselessly. He felt sick.

“Watching us,” Thrawn said, with light emphasis on ‘us.’ Pellaeon looked sideways at him, his eyes narrowing as he processed this correction — and the expectant, guiding expression on Thrawn’s face — and interpreted both of them as best he could. 

“You did it because Rukh was watching,” he said, scarcely able to believe it — and scarcely able to look at Thrawn.

“Partially,” Thrawn said. His upper arm brushed Pellaeon’s as he shrugged. Pellaeon stared down at his own tightly-clasped hands and felt a wash of bitter saliva flood his mouth, like he was about to vomit. Thrawn leaned closer to him, bowing his head in an attempt to make eye contact.

“What did you think you saw?” Thrawn asked.

Pellaeon, eyes squeezed shut and jaw clenched, just shook his head. After a long moment, he felt the mattress shift ever-so-slightly beneath them as Thrawn sat back again, no longer trying to meet Pellaeon’s eyes.

“Did you think it was nonconsensual, then?” he asked. At this, Pellaeon finally opened his eyes, putting as much steel into them as he could.

“What was I supposed to think?” he asked, turning to glare at Thrawn. Thrawn only stared at him, leaning back on his hands — his posture open, vulnerable, disarming. A manipulative effect, Pellaeon realized, and suddenly his sense of illness was mixed with rage. “You certainly let me hit him as if it were nonconsensual,” he spat. “You weren’t saying a word then.”

Thrawn’s eyes flickered. He gazed at Pellaeon a moment longer, appearing unbothered, and then casually laid himself down on the bed. He pulled his legs up and shifted until he was lying atop the covers with his head on the pillow, his body perpendicular to Pellaeon’s. Exasperated, Pellaeon twisted around on the bed until he could see Thrawn’s face again.

“You can’t honestly tell me you have feelings for Garm Bel Iblis,” he said.

Thrawn closed his eyes and shrugged. He opened his eyes again when Pellaeon jabbed him none-too-gently in the ribs.

“Why did you let him touch you?” he demanded. Thrawn looked up at him, his face inscrutable, his eyes heavily lidded. Silently, slowly, he tilted his head until it rested against Pellaeon’s hip. 

“ _You_ touch me, then,” he murmured. Pellaeon’s heart stuttered, but Thrawn’s tone made the words sound less like a come-on and more like a peeved retort. A smirk touched his lips, tantalizing and antagonizing all at the same time. 

“Don’t,” he said roughly.

Thrawn raised an eyebrow at him, and suddenly Pellaeon couldn’t bear to be close to him. He stood abruptly, letting Thrawn’s head slip off his leg and back onto the mattress. He took several steps away before stopping and turning around.

“Don’t say things like that,” he said. “Please.”

Slowly, Thrawn propped himself up on the bed. His expression was unreadable. Pellaeon felt his palms sweating, felt the skin on the back of his neck tingling unpleasantly with a sense of dread. He prayed they wouldn’t have this conversation; he prayed Thrawn would drop it.

And then—

“You desired me,” Thrawn said suddenly, his voice clipped. “Before Bilbringi.”

Pellaeon’s heart spiraled down into shoes, not just at the words — not at the knowledge that Thrawn _knew_ , that he’d known for at least a year — but at the tone of voice, at the flinty look on Thrawn’s face. A look Pellaeon knew all too well, that signified Thrawn was in pain and struggling to hide it.

“Before Bilbringi?” said Pellaeon carefully. 

Thrawn’s eyes seared into his with an unmistakable look of accusation. “Did I lapse out of Basic?” he asked. “You desired me once. It was obvious to anyone who cared to look. Do I need to repeat myself again?”

For a moment, Pellaeon said nothing; he only stood helplessly in the middle of the room, torn between his desire to run and the horrible look on Thrawn’s face that compelled him, that called him closer. He steeled himself in the end, like all good soldiers would, and forced himself to approach the bed again, to perch on the edge of it where he’d been sitting moments before.

Thrawn wouldn’t meet his eyes, choosing instead to glower at the wall. Even when Pellaeon’s fingers brushed his — even when he tentatively took Thrawn’s hand — Thrawn didn’t look his way. 

“ _Before_ Bilbringi,” Pellaeon repeated, his voice quiet, scarcely audible. “That implies I stopped desiring you after.”

“I’ve been called many things, but never unobservant,” Thrawn responded at once, still not looking his way. “And I don’t blame you for it, Gilad.” His voice was rough now; it seemed deliberately hard-edged and uncaring to Pellaeon; it didn’t ring genuine. “I am a different man,” Thrawn said. “It only makes sense that your desires have changed.”

“Because of what the Noghri did to you?” Pellaeon asked. He eyed the scars on Thrawn’s wrist, then the sharp outline of his cheekbones cutting through his skin. “Or because of what you did to yourself?”

Finally, Thrawn looked at him, his eyes sharp and his lips set in a frown.

“I adore you, Thrawn,” Pellaeon said now that he had Thrawn’s attention. He cupped Thrawn’s jaw, his thumb brushing over the synthflesh hidden beneath his chin. “Every inch of you,” he said. “What you’ve noticed in the past year — it isn’t a lack of desire, I promise you. It’s an overabundance of concern.”

Thrawn’s chest seemed almost to stutter as he leaned into Pellaeon’s touch with an eagerness that betrayed his cold expression, placing his own hand over Pellaeon’s to hold it in place — as if Pellaeon would ever want to pull away.

“You don’t need to be concerned,” Thrawn said, voice thick — from joy or from sadness, Pellaeon couldn’t tell. “I’m fine.”

“Statements like that,” said Pellaeon, “are exactly why I’m concerned. You lie to me every day.”

He moved his thumb gently over the strip of synthflesh to soften his words, and Thrawn closed his eyes, pressing his cheek even further into the touch. His free hand came up to rest lightly on Pellaeon’s hip, bracing both of them as they leaned closer to each other.

“I’m not lying, Gilad,” Thrawn murmured. “I have your support, don’t I? My second in command, my finest admiral.” His eyes flickered open, looking directly into Pellaeon’s. “My friend,” he said. “As long as I have you beside me, I _am_ fine. Truly.”

Desperately, Pellaeon wanted to believe it. He kissed Thrawn, felt soft, cool lips against his own, allowed himself to drown in the sensation. When he pulled away, he kissed Thrawn again on the corner of his mouth and whispered, “You always knew when to recognize a futile maneuver, didn’t you?”

Thrawn stilled, his chest frozen underneath Pellaeon’s hands.

“So stop and recognize the futility of this one,” Pellaeon said. “Stop lying to me.”

He lifted Thrawn’s hand palm-up and lowered his head, pressing his lips against Thrawn’s pulse point. 

“I adore you,” he murmured against the vein, and he felt Thrawn’s breath hitch again. “I adore you. Every inch of you. No matter what.”

He drew Thrawn close to him; held him, both of them trembling, with his head against Pellaeon’s shoulder.

“No matter what,” he said again.


End file.
